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,[1] and the number of tracks reduced from 21 to 17.[2] The tracks consisted of a selection by lesser-known experimental, industrial and electronic artists of the period.
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.[3]
The album has been cited as an influence on the EBM genre.[4]
Despite the "difficult" nature of the music, one band on the album, 400 Blows, hit the British charts in 1985 with "Movin'",[5] a cover version of a Brass Construction song.
Three Minute Symphony
A second album, Three Minute Symphony (XTract XX002), was released in 1984; again it was a double LP compiled by Dave Henderson.[6] Each artist was invited to provide a track of approximately three minutes' duration. In contrast to The Elephant Table Album's emphasis on British-based music, many of the featured artists were from other countries, including the USA, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Japan.
^"to aficionados of EBM it provides a good basis for where the music came from" in [2]
^Brown, Kutner and Warwick, The Complete Book of the British Charts(Omnibus, 2002); p389.,
^"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
[3]. A track list is here: [4]
