The Elephant Table Album

Infobox Album
Name = The Elephant Table Album
Type = compilation
Artist = Various artists


Released = 1983
Recorded =
Genre =
Length =
Label = Xtract
Producer =
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"The Elephant Table Album: a compilation of difficult music" was a 1983 Compilation album, released on Xtract Records. The Double album was compiled by music journalist Dave Henderson following a series of articles by him in "Sounds", the British music paper. It was reissued on CD by the same label in 1989, but with the tracks sourced from the vinyl release rather than the master tape, [Listeners to the CD version have reported vinyl noise; they presume that the CD has been mastered from a vinyl copy. [http://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Table-Album-Various-Artists/dp/B0000083CH] ] and the number of tracks reduced from 21 to 17. [ [http://www.discogs.com/release/311738 Various - The Elephant Table Album ] ] The tracks consisted of a selection by lesser-known experimental, industrial and electronic artists of the period.

Track listing

Side 1

* Portion Control - Chew You To Bits
* Chris and Cosey - Raining Tears Of Blood
* Metamorphosis - Musak From Hawthorne Court
* Coil - S Is For Sleep
* Nurse With Wound - Nana Or A Thing Of Uncertain Nonsense Side 2

* 400 Blows - Beat The Devil
* Konstruktivits - Andropov '84
* Lustmord - The Boning Of Men
* Muslimgauze - Milena Jelenska
* David Jackman - Edge of Nothing

Side 3

* SPK - Despair
* MFH - Vox Humana
* Nocturnal Emissions - Suffering Stinks
* Attrition - Dream Sleep
* Legendary Pink Dots - Surprise, Surprise
* Paul Kelday - Birth of Planetesimals

Side 4

* Bourbonese Qualk - Under The City
* Sirius B - Build Your Children
* New 7th Music - New Human Switchbaord (Extract)
* We Be Echo - Alleycat
* Bushido - Modelwerk

Release details

* Catalogue number: Xx001
* Format: Double Vinyl LP (5 September 1983), single CD (1989)
*The CD version lacks the tracks by Paul Kelday, We Be Echo, New 7th Music and Muslimgauze.

Influence

Steven Stapleton of Nurse with Wound also did the artwork for the album, and was sufficiently impressed by David Jackman's track that he invited him to collaborate on a series of music projects. [ [http://www.organum.org/org/discog/Elephant.html The Elephant Table Album ] ]

The album has been cited as an influence on the EBM genre. ["to aficionados of EBM it provides a good basis for where the music came from" in [http://www.electrogarden.com/articles.php?aid=11] ]

Despite the "difficult" nature of the music, one band on the album, 400 Blows, hit the British charts in 1985 with "Movin'". [Brown, Kutner and Warwick, "The Complete Book of the British Charts"(Omnibus, 2002); p389.,]

equel

* A Sequel, "Three Minute Symphony", (Extract Xx002) was compiled later the same year; again it was a double LP with tracks selected by Dave Henderson. ["This album was the sequel to THE ELEPHANT TABLE ALBUM, also compiled by Sounds music journalist Dave Henderson, featuring a very wide range of post-punk, industrial and noise bands." in [http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ultimathule/nww/nwwdiscography.html] . A track list is here: [http://www.brainwashed.com/common/htdocs/discog/xx002.php?site=nww] ]

References

* [http://www.discogs.com/release/102803 2x12" vinyl LP at discogs.com]
* [http://www.discogs.com/release/311738 CD entry at discogs.com]