R. Keenan Lawler
Music for the Bluegrass States
2006

Xeric
XER-CD-108
Compact disc

Native Kentuckian R. Keenan Lawler speaks a private, fundamental language via his trademark metal-bodied resonator guitar. With an intensely focused technique, he sets bluegrass- and blues-inflected tonalities against dense masses of harmonic overtones and sustained textures. It is a mesmerizing sound, one that conjures the effect of various global trance-musics and has beguiled a series of collaborators including Pelt, Matmos, Charalambides and My Morning Jacket. Inhabiting the mysterious string-space between Tony Conrad and John Fahey, Lawler's is a wholly original idiom of music that brims with near-religious exaltation and spectral, gothic dread—a daring plunge through the darkened brambles of a particularly raw Americana.

"The notes ring like alien crystal, cascade like a rain of mirrors, erupt like a volcano woven of wire . . . it's bluegrass for futurists . . . and the guitar is just a marvel, a gorgeous, silvery vision."
—Nougat Magazine

 "There are links of course with the avant garde guitar worrying of Stefan Basho-Junghans or perhaps the steely mayhem of Jack Rose . . . it's hugely visual music, bringing space and imagery to the record which previously only half-existed . . . Gorgeous."
—Boomkat

"Keenan Lawler's scattered resonator guitar finds a secret vista firmly tucked away from all things real and human.”
—The Broken Face

"Monolithic."
—Isthmus, Madison

 "Astonishing."
—Foxy Digitalis

A Conduit for History Exploding in the Present Moment

TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS is a curatorial network and interdisciplinary platform, live-event presenter, and fine-arts publisher of print, audio, and film, lauded by Pitchfork Media as “a national treasure.” Since its origin as a record label in 1993, TotE has been dedicated to preserving, promoting, and promulgating works by international creators of experimental audio, electroacoustics, free-improvised performance, sonic sculpture, microtonality, and modern composition. The label’s 150-plus releases are a vital contemporary chronicle, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of sound and vision.  Each project demonstrates how a publishing concern might romp wild, unbridled from the carousel of convention.

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—Pitchfork

“The hallmarks of this New Archivism are beautiful and innovative packaging, elaborate and idiosyncratic liner notes, rare and obscure recordings ... Working with graphic designers such as the Grammy-winning Susan Archie, Jeff Hunt produced a collection that combines varied textures, lavish finishes, and period details with art from the era of the original source recordings. Their treatment of Robert Longo’s late 1970s photographs for Rhys Chatham’s releases could, for instance, measure up to what’s on view at most contemporary art centers. In addition to its archival endeavor, TotE also releases the new work of its avant-garde heroes and their devotees. TotE’s active support of the work of sonic pioneers ensures that theirs are living traditions — not ossified museum objects.”

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Tony Conrad: Completely In the Present
A Film by Tyler Hubby

"Hubby's film captures Conrad in all his facets ... broadly as a man determined to make 'abstract art funny, happy, energetic, joyful.' Conrad lived long enough to see his early recordings, barely or never released, get the reissue and the attention they deserve. ... [Completely In the Present] is a sharp, sweet, eloquent documentary about the merriest, most artistically expansive minimalist on record. His work and his life asserted the importance of listening for the sounds nobody else has heard."

—Chicago Tribune

“Joyous, exhilarating, and transformative, Tyler Hubby’s documentary is essential viewing for anyone involved in the history of music and visual art.”

—Artforum

"Conrad was 100 percent badass. Without Tyler Hubby’s documentary and Table of the Elements ... one of the great stories of American music and art might have gone underappreciated.”

—Henry Rollins

All contents ©1992–2025 Table of the Elements ®2025 Table of the Elements Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Related media from the Table of the Elements Archive published courtesy the estate of Tony Conrad.

Since 1993, Table of the Elements has staked its claim on a massive enterprise. It intends nothing less than to rewrite the history of American music in the second half of the 20th century -- and beyond. The label’s 150-plus releases are a vital contemporary chronicle, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of improvised, experimental, minimal and outsider sounds.

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