For years composer and guitarist RHYS CHATHAM has labored in the shadow of his onetime colleague Glenn Branca, whose name is practically synonymous with symphonic music scored for massed electric guitars. But Chatham was doing it first, and thanks to an ongoing series of reissues and new releases from Table of the Elements, he’s finally getting his due. He created huge, flowing washes of sound whose monolithic surfaces belied their densely detailed depths, which swarmed with overtones produced by cranking up oddly tuned electric guitars–just three players could sound like a full orchestra. His classic 1977 composition Guitar Trio uses simple, steadily mounting riffs and a straightforward rock rhythm section, but it’s also a study in microtonal harmonies and other acoustic phenomena, interests he picked up from minimalist pioneers like La Monte Young. It laid the foundation for much of what New York’s no-wave scene would produce, from the dissonant art-punk of Sonic Youth to the atonal throb of Ut. The Table of the Elements series includes stunning later works like the surging Die Donnergotter (“The Thunder Gods”) and the 1989 masterpiece An Angel Moves Too Fast to See, for 100 guitars–but pointedly leaves out the brass-based recordings where Chatham dabbles in dance beats, made after he moved to Paris in 1987. Forthcoming are A Crimson Grail, a new piece for 400 guitars, and the debut album from his brand-new quintet, ESSENTIALIST, which includes a bassist, drummer, and three guitarists–among them David Daniell of the trio San Agustin. The band had only just played its first shows at press time, but the PR materials claim Chatham is applying his signature approach to the minimal doom metal of Earth, Sleep, and Sunn 0))). –Peter Margasak
