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Laurie Spiegel
Haromnices Mundi
Lanthanides Series
2003

Table of the Elements
[Promethium] SWC-LP-61
Phono LP, silkscreen

Laurie Spiegel is one of those rare composers in whom head and heart, left brain and right brain, logic and intuition, merge and even exchange roles. Though she is one of the highest-tech computer composers in America, Spiegel is also a lutenist and banjo player, and sees the computer as a new kind of folk instrument. She makes her most intuitive-sounding and melodic music from mathematical algorithms, and her most complex computerized textures by ear and in search of a desired mood. Form and emotion are as difficult to separate in her music as they are in that of J.S. Bach.

Having worked with analog synthesizers since 1969, she sought out the greater compositional control which digital computers could provide and wrote interactive compositional software at Bell Labs from 1973-79. She later founded New York University's Computer Music Studio, and became famous in rock music circles for her music software for personal computers.

Despite her innovative involvement with technology, Spiegel the composer has never been dominated by Spiegel the computer technician. Her music from the 70s used compositional algorithms to generate music in an accessible, minimalist vein. "Minimalism" may still aptly describe the slow movement of pitch in these pieces, but it gives no hint of their complex timbres, glacial momentum, and cathartic climaxes. Such vibrant, expressive music could only have come from a composer who put her intuition and imagination first, yet who had the immense technical know-how needed to meet the challenges they posed.

Since breaking away from downtown New York scene in the early 1980s, a scene she had helped create, Spiegel has lived as one of New York's most independent musicians, supporting herself by her software and circulating her music privately. The track on this release—never before available in its entirety—is one of her most legendary: a realization of Kepler's "Harmony of the Planets,” originally commissioned in 1975 by Dr. Carl Sagan for inclusion on the "Golden Record" that accompanies the Voyager II spacecraft, and is now far beyond the orbit of Pluto in the vastness of interstellar space.

“Some pretty amazing heartfelt molecular inner-happening soundscape soul journeys."

Terry Riley

“In 1977, American astronomer Carl Sagan selected the composer Laurie Spiegel's computerized realization of Johannes Kepler's 1619 treatise ‘Harmony of the Worlds’ for inclusion aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft's "Golden Record’. Kepler's ‘Harmony of the Worlds’ was the lead cut on a collection that held recordings of natural sounds, greetings in 55 languages, selections from Beethoven, Mozart, Blind Willie Johnson, and Chuck Berry, for the sake of demonstrating to other life forms in the galaxy that there is intelligent life on our planet. And now, Laurie Spiegel's music has traveled to the edge of our solar system.

“Even if Spiegel's music weren't already launched into the firmament, it would finds its natural home there; it's when she contemplates orbits, heavenly bodies, and the cosmos through sound that her imagination is unparalleled. While Kepler mused that the ‘Harmony of the Worlds’ would be audible only to the ear of God, what reaches human ears via Spiegel's realization is bracing, menacing, and disorienting, the piercing tones not unlike a choir of air raid sirens. An alien life form encountering it on Voyager's ‘Golden Record’ would conclude that our world was a maddening, maniacal place.”

Pitchfork

“Of all the records listed on Discogs, none is rarer than a first pressing of The Golden Record. To begin with, only two copies of it exist* — and, what’s more, both of those are currently located roughly 15 and 19 billion kilometers away from Earth, and traveling fast. (And you thought paying shipping on Japanese imports was expensive.) Barring some unforeseen quirk in the multiverse, no human will ever lay his or her hands on the thing. But now, you have the chance to own a vinyl copy of Laurie Spiegel’s ‘Harmonices Mundi,’ an avant-garde composition selected for the project by a NASA committee led by Carl Sagan himself.

“Designed to function as a sonic greeting card to any extraterrestrials that might happen across one of the two Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, The Golden Record includes a selection of natural sounds (wind, thunder, whales); spoken greetings in 55 languages; and music ranging from Bach and Mozart to Senegalese percussion and Javanese gamelan. Spiegel, a pioneering computer musician, adapted Johannes Kepler’s 1619 score for an approximation of the fabled ‘music of the spheres’ by programming astronomical data into her computer and letting the drones rip; her recording opens the ‘Sounds of Earth’ portion of The Golden Record.

“‘Harmonices Mundi’ was given a single-sided pressing on Table of the Elements in 2003, and now Boomkat has turned up a trove of warehouse copies. If you want it, order it now — or start working on a warp drive for your Tesla.”

SPIN

“Were Carl alive today—he died in 1996 at the age of sixty-two—I think he’d be delighted.”

The New Yorker

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OWN THE ARCHIVE

(Posted by Within Things, May 18, 2023)

From 1993, US recording label 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. 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.

The label’s carefully cultivated archive now contains over 15,000 CDs and LPs, an impossible quantity to logistically or financially maintain. Rather than “recycle” the majority of these modern sound and design artifacts, Table of the Elements is making them available to the public via Within Things.

From rich bundles of obscure recordings, exclusive printed material, and limited quantity “holy grails,” Within Things is excited to help connect this important archive to the public. We’re very honored to collaborate with a label that helped define a path and inspire what we do, long before our store even existed.

Click the image above to be taken directly to the Table of the Elements section on our site, and stay posted for the announcement of limited offerings via our newsletter.

~~o0o~~

"The supremacy of Table of the Elements as an unwavering outpost of ultra-experimental strains can be attributed to its concomitant adherence to valiance. Most of the Table of the Elements catalog has no broad commercial appeal, and many of its projects are risky ventures, even with respect to the experimental marketplace. Yet, this philosophy of risk works because everybody associated with the label feels like they're doing important work releasing important records, and they're willing to go for broke to make it happen.”

—Pitchfork

"The music made and cultivated by such artists as Tony Conrad, Captain Beefheart, John Fahey, Cecil Taylor, Rhys Chatham, Charlie Feathers, Dock Boggs, Jim O’Rourke, Faust, Derek Bailey, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Keiji Haino, Arnold Dreyblatt, Charley Patton, Harry Smith, and scores more, is at once among the most radical and deeply rooted of the 20th century, transcending time and place through the agency of the vibrating string, the resonance of the drone, the terrifying beauty of electric amplification, the hypnotic power of repetition, and the revelatory genius of cranky individualism. 

"How does someone begin to represent that in a visual manner? The trick involves some old-fashioned alchemy. Everyday commodity has to be constructed as both miniature museum and theater. No longer a mere object, it now becomes a site in which one can endlessly indulge a sense of wonder, love and, yes, obsession. It’s not often that someone can cast an influence on a broader design aesthetic — think Blue Note in the 1960s, with its hip Reid Miles album covers — but as this sizable body of work took shape, that’s exactly what happened.”

—Steve Dollar

“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, [the label] 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.”

—Art Papers

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 ©2024 Table of the Elements ®2024 Table of the Elements Archive. 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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