Byron Coley's review in The Wire, May 2003
Andy Beta's review in Pitchfork, May 19th, 2003
David Fricke's review in Rolling Stone, May 15, 2003
review in Baltimore City Paper
review in Trouser Press

RHYS CHATHAM
An Angel Moves Too Fast to See 3xCD box (2003)

"Like a demigod, (Rhys Chatham) set everything in motion and then disappeared, leaving us to figure out how to live in the universe he created." —The New York Times

"For years Rhys Chatham's music has been more heard about than heard. While his work languished out of print, disciples such as Sonic Youth have gone to the bank with his sound. Chatham's sonic vocabulary is an inspired marriage of minimalist structures, rock cadences and glittering overtones obtained from massed electric guitars played in unusual tunings at crushing volume. (His) knack for garbling indelible melodies in gorgeous sonorities makes them as attractive as ever today." —The Chicago Tribune

"Blue Oyster Cult and Kiss might've made noises about guitar armies, but it took composer Rhys Chatham to actually deploy one. And there's no other way to say this: It rocks." —Magnet

"A huge reckoning with one of the downtown greats looming larger than the Federal Reserve building. Chatham is huge, and that the box grasps so much of that significance makes it a crowning achievement." —Pitchfork

"Everything compelling about Chatham's music is crystallized here, and any fan of experimental music from the last four decades would do well to pay heed." —Baltimore City Paper

"A real jewel. Using six guitars playing interlocking melodies, Chatham weaves an intricate tapestry that's alternately ear-splitting and nearly Eastern in its delicacy... Get the fuses and the earplugs ready!" —Trouser Press

"As An Angel Moves Too Fast To See unfolds, it develops an extended sense of grandeur that should be obvious to anyone. If some segments function very well as art rock, others really transcend all known genres - just huge wallows in oceans of sound. This set documents the music on which (Chatham's) reputation rests and which almost slid through the fingers of history. The package is gorgeous, the notes thorough. And the music is, well, angelic. Really." —Byron Coley, The Wire

"With Sonic Youth plowing their way across the nation on the steam of their earliest, most fearsome material, what better time for a retrospective on Rhys Chatham, one of the group's biggest early influences? Chatham, a student of Tony Conrad, La Monte Young, and Morton Subotnick, created a series of dense, overdriven guitar symphonies that predated even those of Glenn Branca, who participated in Chatham's ensembles along with later members of Sonic Youth, Swans, and Band of Susans. This set features fearsome monoliths of tonality that bridge the avant-garde and pure power rock in an accessible, visceral way that Branca's work never has." —The Austin Chronicle

"To those of us who experienced it back when, (Die Donnergotter) still packs the same joyful wallop, strutting along jauntily, riff piled upon riff, with its own special kind of clarity and orgasmic tension and release. Loud, raucous, barely controlled and sublime." —The Squid's Ear

"Chatham aimed for naturalism and transcendence; simultaneously beatific and horrifying, his music can sound like tornadoes or a swarm of bees, as peaceful as a nave or as chaotic as an avalanche. Sumptuously designed... check it out." —Blender

"Another killer Table of the Elements release. Fans of Branca, Sonic Youth, Wire, Mission of Burma, etc., will love this. Brilliant, and a great introduction to this oft-forgotten chap." —KUSF, San Francisco

"The music glories in the primal joy of chiming overtones and massed rhythms, and swings madly. It grins and bounds. Art music has rarely sounded so happy and well-adjusted." —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Stunning... ambitious... majestic... Imagine Steve Reich conducting Godspeed You Black Emperor! and you'll be some way towards realizing this man's sound and vision... Massive." —MOJO

"Explodes in a wall of grinding guitars before collapsing into optimistic breakdowns, proving that this is music for the mind... Mammoth." —Creative Loafing, Atlanta

"One of the most impressive Table of the Elements releases to date!" —Downtown Music Gallery, NYC

"Absolutely thrilling... It rules." —Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Germany's largest daily newspaper)

"A volatile, shimmering wash of overtones... a revelation." —Art Papers

"Gratifying, sternum-thudding din." —Leonardo/MIT Press

"Surging phosphorescence... Uplifting." —Rolling Stone

"Black-and-Decker classical." —Guitar Player

"Stunning." —The Wire