Ordier

Though the era of punk was widely regarded as a time of extremes, legendary group Wire and guitarist BC Gilbert provided the most problematic, visionary, and ironic response to the music scene of the mid-'70s. The angular minimalism of their sound, the abstract, deadpan lyrics, and a penchant for confrontation betrayed the art school origins made Wire an idiosyncratic triumph. With bravery, integrity, absolute courage, and energy -- and more ideas and concepts than any other musician of his era -- Gilbert continues to forge ahead. In his post-Wire work, he has utilized a variety of modernist tools and explored a vast range of experimental music, from electronic noise to ambient drones; he has collaborated with Robert Mills to examine the relationship between environment and sound by placing mics around a London art gallery; he was involved in the production of MZUI Australia with Russell Mills and Graham Bartlet, a 16-track live air-to-satellite mix from Sydney to London; he was also part of the infamous Moscow 'Brittonica' festival, where he and Aphex Twin were physically ejected from behind the turntables. However, Gilbert's most notorious solo project was that of DJ Beekeeper, a regular at Paul Smith's Disobey noise salon, where he performed inside a garden shed. In 1996 he was invited to bring this sonic melee to the Table of the Elements Yttrium Festival in Chicago, where he shared a stage with avant stalwarts including John Fahey, Tony Conrad, Jim O'Rourke, and Keiji Haino. Table of the Elements is now pleased to present the contemporaneous CD, "Ordier." Recorded for the label in 1996 but subsequently believed lost, "Ordier" lets loose a wild swarm of electronics. As Gilbert writes: "I'm taking a very, very minimalist approach and really getting inside some of the sounds and chasing them to destruction. It's done mostly with effects, guitar pedals pushed to the absolute limit."