San Agustin
The Expanding Sea
2002

Table of the Elements
[Thallium] TOE-CD-81
3x compact discs, book, foil stamps, 96-page catalog

Georgia natives San Agustin (David Daniell, guitar; Andrew Burnes, guitar; Bryan Fielden, drums) have performed with a multitude of notables from the improvised community, including Ken Vandermark, Thurston Moore, Loren MazzaCane and others, but this boxed set is the first truly representative document of their live presence. Haunting moments of introspection are enveloped in clouds of bluesy guitar notes, then swept away by great electric gales; drones rumble and shimmer in the aftermath. The Expanding Sea is a sweeping work by a tremendous ensemble, one that is discreetly creating a genre-defying yet archetypically American music.

“[San Agustin] works in suspended slow-motion patterns that revolve around simple resonating phrases, like a rock trio stripped of all content—just leaving a bare skeleton of tone traces behind. The beauty is in its strict restraint; unlike many improvising trios, the group never heads off into chaos, with every piece a tamed and trimmed exercise in controlled feedback and subtle cymbal chimes. Bridging post-rock and avant-garde on one axis, and on the other retaining a strict adherence to rock tradition, the feel is of a familiar austerity that calls to mind the chilling moments of Sonic Youth's first album."
All Music Guide

“Trio from Georgia that purvey a floating ethereal improvised gauzy veil of sound. Jazzy drumming (in the best sense) and criss-crossing picked guitar parts by turns meditative and discursive, these guys have a great take on group dynamics and are justly lauded... Entrancing."
Corpus Hermeticum

"Daniell takes the soul on a journey, both calming and disturbing, from which it never returns. Burnes plays avant-garde blues—old truths with new structure and imaginings. Fielden challenges the drums; he finds strength in fragility and fragility in strength. This is music for travelers."
Suzanne Langille

“Flaunts a complex group of musicians bending the rules with formless simplicity ... and evokes a tattered sense of Americana filled with rural, dream-like desperation."
Creative Loafing, Atlanta

San Agustin
Triangulation (Hoof and Mouth Blues)
Lanthanides Series
2003

Table of the Elements
[Cerium] SWC-LP-58
Phono LP, silkscreen, luminous ink

“There's an intelligence at work here, and something intuitive. You can't pinpoint it, maybe in the way you can't explain the smell of a rose."
Loren MazzaCane Connors

RHYS CHATHAM
“DIE DÖNNERGÖTTER” GUITAR ARMY
+ JONATHAN KANE
+ ORIGINAL ARTWORK AND PROJECTIONS BY ROBERT LONGO
ARNOLD DREYBLATT
+ THE ORCHESTRA OF EXCITED STRINGS
JONATHAN KANE’S FEBRUARY
TONY CONRAD
SAN AGUSTIN
ZEENA PARKINS
ANDREW BURNES/DAVID DANIELL/THURSTON MOORE TRIO
Leif Inge 9 BEET STRETCH: 24-HOUR PERFORMANCE

DUBNIUM:
TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS FESTIVAL NO. 3
2005

Table of the Elements
[Dubnium] TOE-105
March 15-16
2005

Central Presbyterian Church
8th and Brazos
Austin, Texas
Entry: South by Southwest festival pass
Producers: Jeff Hunt/SxSW

Andrew Burnes
Telescope
Guitar Series Vol. III 
2008

Table of the Elements
[Californium] TOE-LP-98
Phono LP, laser etching, clear/mottled vinyl
Illustration by Savage Pencil

Table of the Elements continues to celebrate its 15th anniversary with the seventh installment in its Guitar Series Vols. 3 & 4. It’s a 12xLP romp of deviant fretnoise by some of experimental music’s most prominent players, including Christian Fennesz, Thurston Moore, and Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley.

Table of the Elements presents the long-overdue solo debut of Andrew Burnes. Burnes, along with David Daniell, is a founding member of the ethereal, post-blues ensemble San Agustin; he’s also a member of Haunted House, alongside Loren Mazzacane Connors; and he’s performed in improv settings with the likes of Ken Vandermark and Thurston Moore. Finally committed to vinyl, he doesn’t disappoint: Telescope is a glittering chunk of sound, as Burnes transforms that particular emblem of Americana, the steel guitar, into one vast, slowly undulating drone.

Andrew Burnes’ name may not be familiar, but fans of the genre needn’t worry. Back in 1993, Table of the Elements’ original Guitar Series featured what was only the second US solo release from a similarly unknown artist: Jim O’Rourke. You can trust us again with this one.

"Sounding not unlike a seriously chilled Stars of the Lid being played at the wrong speed, Burnes gently glides through the manipulator and modulator gears framing the senses numbing slow burning tension formed feedback whirrs with delicate dapples of softly applied arid toned riff shimmies and mantra like bowed expanses, the amazing thing here being that the whole process has been engineered by the use of a solitary steel guitar with the monotone spectral auras produced within resulting in a strangely eerie before the storm type calm whilst simultaneously providing for a consuming and reverential meditative listening spectacle."
The Sunday Experience

"This new Guitar Series installment is also the debut solo LP by David Daniell's bandmate in San Agustin, Andrew Burnes - though he may equally be known for his improv collaborations with the likes of Thurston Moore and Ken Vandermark, or as a co-conspirator in Loren Connors' Haunted House. Telescope takes the form of a single, lengthy drone piece, modulating and morphing across an expanse of handsome, marble-effect green vinyl. Burnes isn't shy of morphing and undulating his queasy tones as the composition goes on, drawing out all manner of dissonant overtones from his sound source - which unbelievably is a single steel guitar. Burnes' work here takes on a very physical quality, and it's a drone that feels genuinely substantial, with a real presence. Recommended."
SoundOhm

DAVID DANIELL
I/IV/V/I
GUITAR SERIES VOL. IV
2008

Table of the Elements
[Einsteinium] TOE-LP-99
Phono LP, laser etching, clear/mottled vinyl
Illustration by Savage Pencil

David Daniell leads the troops in Rhys Chatham's guitar armies, was a member of Jonathan Kane's band February, and performs regularly in a duo with Tortoise's Doug McCombs. He's collaborated with Tim Barnes, Thurston Moore, and Loren Connors and his guitar work with his own band, San Agustin, is the stuff of which fleeting blues-drone dreams are made. With influences rooted in blues, American minimalism, and post-punk ideomatics, Daniell's guitar playing is always inspired; when fused with his intricate electro-acoustic compositions, the results are breathtaking.

DAVID DANIELL
COASTAL
2006

Xeric
XER-CD-109
Compact disc

Have you heard the raw, minimal howl that rises from the late-night, backwoods campfires at Table of the Elements? If so, you know the work of David Daniell—even if you don't yet recognize the name. Daniell is the head of both of composer Rhys Chatham's current ensembles; he's the lead guitarist in Jonathan Kane's rollicking band, February; he performs regularly in a duo with Tortoise's Doug McCombs; he has collaborated with the Who's Who of today's finest, including Tim Barnes, Thurston Moore and Loren Connors; and his guitar work with his own band, San Agustin, is the stuff of which fleeting blues-drone dreams are made.

Following a long break after his debut solo release, Daniell now returns with Coastal. In all its variety, this record is a focused synthesis of influences. Tracks like "Sunfish" and "Glasswort" use acoustic guitar reminiscent of work by David Grubbs and Mountains, while the thick psychedelic morass of deep electric guitar, synth drone and scattered tribal percussion of "Whelk" brings to mind early Faust, and the long-form tone poem "Palmetto" is pure swirling electronic glacial beauty. Rooted in the blues, American minimalism and post-punk ideologies, Daniell's guitar playing is always inspired; when fused with his intricate electroacoustic compositions, the results are breathtaking.

"With his slow-moving, understated music, David Daniell makes a fine spokesman for the notion that anything worth doing is worth doing for a long, long time. Whether he's contributing moody strums and sculpted E-Bow drones to the guitar trio San Agustin or stringing computer-generated pings and bumps across gulfs of silence on Sem, his solo debut on his own Antiopic label, he develops his material patiently, the better to let you observe the sounds from every angle."
Chicago Reader

Jack Rose
Greg Malcolm
Ben Vida
Sir Richard Bishop
Michael Hurley
No Neck Blues Band
w/ John Fahey and Coach Fingers
Lichens
Badgerlore
R. Keenan Lawler
Pumice
David Daniell
The Great Koonaklaster Speaks:
A John Fahey Celebration
2006

Table of the Elements
[Protactinium] TOE-CD-91
Compact disc

John Fahey's death is shrouded in confusion and camouflage. He is believed to have died in the explosion of a house during the filming of Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point in 1969. His remains were never found, and the question remains: Did Fahey purposely stage his own death for his own occlusive purposes?

A collusion of folk, blues, ethnic and modern classical methods, Fahey's music suggests both the trickster and the shaman, and has attracted a cult of musician followers over the years, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. His unsolved disappearance has inspired another cult that worships Count Saint Germain, a Rosicrucian adept who is said to have never died and assumed various identities over the centuries. Disciples of this sect, heard on this record, believe Fahey, "The Great Koonaklaster," to be the most recent incarnation of Saint Germain. They view Fahey's music as a synthesis of Saint Germain's abilities as a classical composer and skills as an alchemist, and have absorbed his guitar style in order to pay homage to him.

There is much to be gleaned from the Koonaklasterians' rites contained within; whether or not you choose to accept this "Immortal Motherf#cker of the 20th Century" as Saint Germain is up to you.

"If [I Am the] Resurrection is the first and worst tribute to [John] Fahey released since his 2001 death, The Great Koonaklaster Speaks is the newest and best, the clearest and most brazen picture of the onus and inspiration Fahey has left for modern music. Importantly, this is a tribute record, but it's not a covers record: Instead, it collects unreleased work from 11 current experimental acts that feel Fahey's influence and attempt to offer a glimpse of it here. Alternately humorous, solemn, grounded, and neoteric, the rangy work on Koonaklaster asserts that Fahey wasn't perfect or filtered, and that his legacy is at once challenging and lifting. It's not about critical doublespeak or who can pick the best six-string. Instead, its liner notes are a fictional mythology of Fahey's life written in his style, and the playing recasts the characteristics that fired his legacy. Bravo"
Pitchfork

Track List

1. Jack Rose "Since I've Been a Man Full Grown" 11:08
2. Greg Malcolm "Spanish Flang Dang" 5:13
3. Ben Vida "Exorcise/Intone" 7:24
4. Sir Richard Bishop "Hood River Lap Dance" 4:25
5. Michael Hurley "My Babe, My Babe" 3:00
6. No Neck Blues Band w/ John Fahey and Coach Fingers "Overcome" 3:46
7. Lichens "Escapisms in a Comedic Forum" 3:27
8. Badgerlore "Red Apple" 5:31
9. R. Keenan Lawler "I Used to Strive for a Tree; Now I Thrive on a Mountain" 4:06
10. Pumice "Ceremonial Knives" 4:53
11. David Daniell "Crossing the Susquehanna River Bridge" 11:31