Eavesdropping: What Harvard's Playing

Table of the Elements is a New York-based label that puts out a lot of electroacoustic/minimalist/drone weirdness, including a bunch of long-out-of-print or unreleased records. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of their stuff, especially a series of Tony Conrad compositions that he made in 1969 with a sine-wave oscillator called “Fantastic Glissando.” My roommate Josh thinks it sounds like a plane taking off. Table of the Elements has also released a 2-CD set of Tony Conrad’s 1972 collaboration with the Krautrock band Faust called “Outside the Dream Syndicate,” and it’s incredible. It’s really interesting to see how Faust’s stripped-down art-rock and Conrad’s avant-classically-influenced drone intersect, especially since Conrad was involved with other rock experimenters like John Cale (of The Velvet Underground) back home. Other stuff: German industrial-noisers Einstuerzende Neubaten’s collaboration with randy no-wave poet Lydia Lunch, Joe Jones’ Fluxus-inspired machine music, Bastard Noise’s divine Japanese tour LP.