The Hafler Trio album Intoutof (pronounced "into out of") was originally released in 1985 on vinyl. The master tapes were too long for the capabilities of the equipment, so the original solution was to run the tapes at a slightly faster rate to compensate. When the material was reissued on CD in 1990, the original tape speed was restored. Despite this modification, the release still has the feel of an LP, with the two long pieces representing each side of the album, not subdivided into tracks, even though each listed piece is clearly distinguishable from the others. This feeling becomes even stronger at the transition between the two sides, as the two parts of "Purgatory" sound very much cut from the same loud metallic drone cloth, and the sudden transitions reinforce this impression. "Ascent" is one of the most beautiful ambient pieces in the Hafler Trio oeuvre, composed of whistling sounds like the whirly tube children's toy, a blissful piece that takes up two thirds of the first side. Intoutof has many fewer voices than other Hafler Trio releases, almost exclusively layers of drone soundscapes drenched in reverberation, with electronic events occasionally appearing out of the mist. The only voices appear at the beginning of "Consecration," a combination of yelling, percussion, and loud turbine engines that marks the climax and conclusion of this ritualistic release. ~ Caleb T. Deupree, All Music Guide

THE HAFLER TRIO — INTOUTOF (Album on KK Records).
The only really new Hafler Trio work that appeared in 1988. On the cover you find a long story about a man in a building. Originally this story was told in dutch and together with the music broadcasted as a radio programme. But due to the fact that Andrew M.McKenzle couldn't find a proper person to read the text in the english language for this record, he decided to put the music on the opening of one side, and the closing on the other side which are quite harsh (it sounds like a synthesizer, but knowing the Hafler Trio that is unlikely). Most of the music is very originate from our environment, but due to a difficult and a long process of editing, it is very hard to recognize these sounds as being natural sounds. I find it very refreshing that, although it sounds like the same working process, the result is different from the previous works by Hafler Trio. These previous compositions I associate with short collages, that were placed one after the other. These pieces consist of long, ongoing sounds, with just enough changes to prevent it from becoming dull. A good release. With a beautiful cover!
Address: KK Records — Parkstraat 25 — 2700 St.Niklaas — Belgium

Vital, 7 jan 1989

The Hafler Trio: Intoutof

The Hafler Trio — Intoutof

1. Chill Out Music Good for Chill Out Rooms at Raves: 4
Strange and relaxing aquatic tweaking for much of this cd, until it is interrupted by annoying avant garde power tool sounds about twenty minutes in. Its a good CD if you can be bothered turning it off before it gets to the stupid bit. Should have never been released like this.

2. One of the Hafler Trio's finest moments: 4
The Hafler Trio (really just Andy MacKenzie) occasionally have what some have called a "quality control" problem. However, "Intoutof" is one of their finest albums. It comprises of six titled tracks (on the CD it's one long track) that take the listener on a serene (for the most part — see below) journey with many subtle sounds and effects flitting in and out. Very soothing and enjoyable and one of the Hafler Trio's more accessible works.
However, there is one thing about this album that, in my opinion, detracts from this otherwise great soundscape that is in keeping with MacKenzie's "throw a spanner into the works" style. The first two pieces lull you into thinking this is one really great atmospheric soundscape, with one track transitioning into another, then all of a sudden there's a really loud Merzbow-esque noise track that comes from out of nowhere that scares the heck out of you, then a three second pause, then the same track an octave higher. After all of that it gets back to soundscapes again right where the album left off. I like noise, too, but when I pop this into the CD player, this is not the mood I'm in. It's at this point I had wished each track was actually separated so I could skip over the noise tracks, but then again, that would not be Hafler Trio, now would it?

source

The Hafler Trio
Redintegrate CD (Staalplaat STCD 014) 26 minutes

The Hafler Trio's work could be claimed to be some of the only truly magickal music being produced nowadays. It's aim is to communicate directly rather than through the use of symbols, which inevitably fragment human experience. It should be experienced intuitively rather than considered intellectually. It should not be subjected to relativist analysis: it is what it is and no more. On a mundane level, it consists of looped, cycling, droning, rumbling noises, tapes, voices, cut-up and collaged into totally abstract soundscapes. Most of the sound sources are recordings of natural sounds, voices, the media etc, the idea presumably being that these types of noises are more likely to produce some sort of unconscious response than artificial / electronic ones which will be unable to trigger the same memories and half-memories. The Hafler Trio are perfectly capable of presenting soundscapes as boring as anyone with no imagination and a couple of tape machines to their name, but they couple their music to texts designed to open up the listener's mind, allowing them if they are willing to actively experience the music rather than passively listen to it. The music here isn't particularly entertaining, but that's hardly the point, of course. [Available from Staalplaat]

http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/reviews/musrevs2.html

LUCIANO DARI / THE HAFLER TRIO —
IDROGENI SUPERIORI / BEN, RUACH, AB, SHALOSHETHEM YECHAD THAUBODO
(Musica Maxima Magnetica eee 01)
A split album between an, for me, unknown Italian guy and The Hafelr Trio, the well-known intellectuals from the U.K. To start with the last one. They did produce quite some records (and tapes, see tapereviews), underwhich is a limited 12" on Touch Records, called 'Brain Song'. Three pieces on this record (that is Ben, Ruach etc...) appear on 'Brain Song' also (which has five pieces in total). So I don't sew why McKenzie & Co did re-release three tracks on a italian record. As we are to believe has each Hafler Trio a sort of 'concept'. So it is strange that only a few tracks are re-released. Well anyway the music: I really listened good to the work of The Hafler Trio, but I find it very hard to identify the sounds they use. Sometimes I think they use synths or tone-generators or processed tapes. In the first piece you will also hear screaming of (I think) women. All 3 pieces consist of sounds which are strong (cannot find another word), but they stop as suddenly as they start. The Hafler Trio has an unique sound, which is impossible to describe. Find it out yourself.
On Luciano Dari's side you will also find three pieces. The first two pieces are a bit like The Hafler Trio, although it seems obvious that Dari uses mostly synthesizer. Probably due to this, and maybe the fact that it is not recorded well (or at least not so deformed as The Hafer Trio) is reminds me of early 70's german synthesizer music. The third track, called Soviet Propaganda, is totally out of place on this record. This is just a normal piece of pop-music, with drums, bass etc. Very bad!
If you already have 'Brain Song', when you they buy this record, you will buy only two good pieces. If you are unfamiliar with both The Hafler Trio and Luciano Dari, you have a good opportunity to find them out.

Vital, 2 jan 1988

THE HAFLER TRIO
"The Howney Stone" from All That Rises Must Converge

[Right at the end of the piece] The Hafler Trio
What gave it away?
My suspicions were raised by the gloom factor. I've got a lot of time for The Hafler Trio — it's almost pure process. I find that quite attractive. And from a Beekeeping point of view, extremely useful. [DJing has] got this porous quality to it, for when you mix certain sounds together. It depends what volume it's at and how you mix it with other things. Almost anything can be porous at volume, but certain things allow sharper noises to be introduced...That's the whole point of using technology — it creates other possibilities and reveals other internal structures. And in slowing things down and speeding things up, other things become apparent and open doors on expanding the piece, and give clues where to take it next.

Bruce Gilbert's Invisible Jukebox, The Wire 137 July 1995

THE HAFLER TRIO — IGNOTIUM PER IGNOTIUS (CD on Touch).
I always felt that music by, for instance Nurse With Wound or The Hafler Trio would be at its best when released on CD instead of easily damaged vinyl — "That scratching is making met itch". And yes, here it is. The first CD by The Hafler Trio. IPI was initially intended to be released as a three 7" box set with booklet. But 7" records usually are of very bad quality. And this must be one of the reasons that the IPI project now has been released on CD.
The music (?) itself is not that much different from what we have heard of the last few records, with maybe as exception 'Intoutof (see Vital 7). But what makes it really interesting, is the sound quality. Listening to it is not easy. At times you 'hear' only silence (no scratches, no noise, just silence), is the disc over ? No: suddenly an enormous avalanche of sound roars from your loudspeakers, with, an impact only possible on CD.
As is usual, this release includes a booklet (32 pages). The whole text is in reversed writing, which makes it very difficult to read. In fact I didn't even trouble myself, decoding the text with a mirror. I assume that basically all Hafler Trio texts are the same. And it doesn't have any influence on me when I listen to the music. Texts like these (about different forms of alchemy?), merely help to create or maintain the Hafler Trio's scientific aura. Another interesting detail about this release: the CD isn't packed in the usual plastic box, but in a beautifully designed booklet {20 at 13 cm).
Address: Touch — 13 Osward Road — London SW17 7SS — England (PD)

Vital, 8 may 1989

THE HAFLER TRIO
Ignotum Per Ignotius (Korm Plastics / Target, 2007)

Re-issues sind in der Regel überflüssig wie ein Kropf. Ausnahmen gibt es (gab es immer...): 1989 brachte Touch dieses reichlich halbstündige Opus als CO heraus (die erste des H30) und derartige Klangkunst wird heute einfach nicht mehr (in dieser Qualität) praktiziert. Der Titel ist Programm und gilt allgemein für Mr. McKenzies Weitsicht: Das Unbekannte durch Unbekanntes erklären. Komplette Verwirrung stiften. Zeichen verwenden, niemals deuten. Maschinenlärm und maschinell erzeugter treffen auf pianissimo-Strecken, Radiostimmen und Umgebungsgeräusche umarmen sich beim Kanalwechsel. Musikgewordene Alchemie, könnte man meinen (auch angesichts des spiegel-gescfiriebenen booklets mitsamt seiner barocken Fabelwesen): Slowly, the curtain is Iowered.

Karsten Zimalla (Westzeit | D | 04/07)

The Hafler Trio — Ignotium Per Ignotius [Korm Plastics — 2007]
The hafler trio who is mainly one Andrew M. McKenzie, have made a career out of making some of the most puzzling, confusing and down right odd & hidden agenda art. Both with their strange and often jarring soundworlds which fall some were between noise,ambient/drone,Musique concrete, and their often over the top packaging.
Ignotium Per Ignotius stands as the seventh re-issue by korm plastics of 1980's albums previously released on Touch. With the superb and deeply head scratching artwork, booklet etc been as important as the enclosed near on 40 minutes of sound. We first have a picec of tracing paper sheet of art paper that's watermarked with bizarre and puzzling text wrapped around a cardboard fold which houses the disk and a 30 plus page booklet again wrapped in art paper like the first piece. The booklet is filled with backwards text and old black and white prints that get progressively odder. The text consist of strange and often surreal tales and dialogue, which goes from plain odd to bizarrely amusing.
The cd it's self goes from been barely-there ambient sound sheen to sudden jarring and loud sound chaos to anywhere in-between those two states. Utilizing drone craft, electronic hiss and whoosh, creepy cinematic undertones and wavering synth tones. with long stretches of weird found sound, backwards dialogue, wind sounds, chattering ect. All to making a wonderful disorientating sound stew where you really don't know what will happen next.
A rewarding and strange piece audio-visual art, that deservers the time of those interested in challenge sound art and art in general. All to be taken with a pinch of humorous salt, Wether it all actually means anything is another thing or maybe that's the point?! 4/5

Roger Batty

The Hafler Trio – Ignotum Per Ignotius
(CD Re-issue by Korm Plastics, originally released by Touch in 1989)

"something approached, and it was embraced, thorns piercing the anonymous functions and the ways in which all the secrets had been help in high esteem. traces of the places yet to come, and those to be left far behind. the first outing in the digital domain, and all the difference the day made when it appeared, startling those in need of a jolly good lie down. and so it went, out with the new and in with the old. dressed up to the (significant number), polished so that even the lowliest louse can admire themselves in the obsidian entities we call an aid to beauty. without a doubt, the flowering of nothing evil, but certainly the full spectrum of the shades. and a small wander through some of them. unable to be be defeated, it carries on with a huge flag at the beginning of the procession." — the hafler trio

It always irritates me to hear the phrase 'let the music speak for itself'. It obstinately refuses to acknowledge that the relationship between sound and the listener is mediated by countless preconceptions, preconceptions so strong as to determine whether the listener hears anything in the sound at all. I say this, for the Hafler Trio provides the perfect antithesis to such short-sightedness. From the moment one picks up a Hafler Trio release one is inundated with (dis)information designed to confront expectations and mould a context for the sounds one will hear.

Ignotum Per Ignotius [unknown to the very unknown], the seventh re-release by Korm plastics, comes (like the previous six) in beautifully sumptuous packaging and with an accompanying booklet of mythical looking prints and short stories - all of which are written in reverse. The stories are all childlike in nature but with a dark symbolism always just beneath the surface. They are also, as with much Andrew McKenzie does, soaked in wit (something sadly often missed in his work). The mirror reading exercise, which I initially thought a somewhat conceptual point, actually proved to add a great deal to the stories. The physicality of the text, as it floated around on the dirty mirror, was very much felt in the process of reading, making the experience feel singular and unique and perfectly preparing for the CD.

I do not feel I can really comment much upon the audio on the CD other than saying that the contrasts are perhaps more pronounced and shocking than most other Hafler Trio releases. There would be no point trying to describe the sounds as beautiful, ugly, pleasant or unpleasant, for although they are all of these things, this proves inconsequential as regards their efficiency. All I will say is that as a means of communication the Hafler Trio's work generally, with adequate concentration, succeeds, this work being no exception; I cannot say what it communicates, but then if I could there would be no such need for the means employed.

Andrew Mackenzie is neither an artist nor a musician but one feels that he succeeds in delivering what both fields promise and almost always fail to deliver, namely a medium created to fulfil its own communicative demands. You would be fools not to buy up his back-catalogue given that you have a second chance.

www.kormplastics.nl

Iain Ross for www.hairentertainment.com

THE HAFLER TRIO — IGNOTUM PER IGNOTIUS (CD by Korm Plastics)
Already the 7th release in the highly impressive re-release series by Korm Plastics. Originally released by Touch in the summer of 1989, this was the first CD by The Hafler Trio. Ignotium Per Ignotius stands for unknown to the very unknown, which is as much a mystery as the other Hafler Trio CD with a Latin title from that period "E Causa Ignota" — by unknown cause). Releases by The Hafler Trio are never "easy listening" and Ignotum Per Ignotia no exception. This is a brief CD (clocking in at 36 minutes), which for once is a good thing, as there is much to experience. The music seems based upon silence and noise. There are long periods of silence and then suddenly there's an outpouring of noise. The noise is multi-layered and even though this is a difficult Hafler CD to listen to, there is a strange quality and attractiveness in the music. McKenzie obviously knows what he is doing. There are track titles listed on the sleeve, but the music is coded as one long piece. The CD comes packed in the usual high standard of this series in a wrap-around sleeve with a booklet featuring beautiful graphics and a text in mirrored writing. Not that the text is very helpful towards explaining the music (Hafler Trio texts never give the game away but only add to it), but it is an interesting read. This is a good-looking release and, if you give it some time and attention, you will find the music equally good (or even better)! (FK) (Vital Weekly)

HAFLER TRIO Ignotium Per Ignotius
Rated: 4 stars
Recently I've read the short but interesting interview to Asmus Tietchens done by Nuno Loureiro (see the interviews section) where he speaks about the fact while at the beginning he got fascinated by the industrial scene, successively he evolved into something else closer to the so called “music concrete”. The Hafler Trio together with Tietchens, Waterman and similar musicians represents the epitome of that scene located in the nowhere land between experimental music, music concrete, industrial oddities and "space trips", but wasn't that what early industrial was about? Wasn't it striving to be the next step after the idea of punk? Wasn't it much more challenging and exciting that dressing like Douglas Pierce an acting like a Boyd Rice?. The fact is that the Hafler Trio in 1986 was much more ahead than many musicians doing the same things in the new millenium even if the hyper prolificity of the project sometimes prevented it to get always a top notch result. Tip of hat for the carrier here celebrated with a repress that's part of a whole repress project Korm Plastic dedicated to this english born artist, the packaging is simply rad and the music, while presenting some typical features like those concrete sounds, some powerful white-noise blasts, some sharp frequencies is fragmented and full of silence that interrupts the fluxus of the suite requiring a patient listening to get in symbiosis with the work. As I've wrote at the bginning of the review people like Hafler Trio, Waterman and Tietchens deserves a particular place in the history of music.

Review by: Andrea Ferraris

The Hafler Trio Ignotium Per Ignotius (Korm Plastics / Metamkine)

S’il est un univers musical particulièrement difficile à pénétrer, c’est bien celui de Hafler Trio. Mené depuis plus de vingt ans par Andrew McKenzie, et par ses nombreux collaborateurs parmi lesquels Chris Watson, co-fondateur de Cabaret Voltaire, The Hafler Trio a toujours placé la création et l’écoute musicale au niveau de l’expérience psycho-acoustique, reliant dans un mélange de collages abstraits et de drones ondulatoires les déclinaisons sinueuses d’un univers graphique conceptuel et philosophique particulièrement singulier. Du coup, la discographie d’Hafler Trio en est particulièrement hermétique, recelant nombre de projets aussi difficiles à percer qu’étonnement attractifs du fait de leur artwork toujours soigné, portant dans leur filiation inébranlable les fondations d’un ésotérisme post-industriel avant-gardiste. 14 de ces albums font actuellement l’objet d’une réédition en cours par le label néerlandais Korm Plastics, et Ignotium Per Ignotius est exactement le septième objet sonore de ce juste recadrage. Premier album d’Hafler Trio paru en cd en 1989, Ignotium Per Ignotius est sûrement un des disques les plus compliqués à s’approprier du groupe mais tenter l’expérience Hafler Trio par son versant le plus difficile réserve probablement les sensations les plus étranges. Introduit par un livret dont les textes sibyllins sont écrits à l’envers comme au travers d’un miroir, le disque évolue au gré d’intrigantes plongées et contre-plongées sonores, plaçcant successivement l’auditeur au c?ur de couches bruitistes immergées, puis subitement submergées par un silence de surface qui oblige à tendre l’oreille au coeur d’une matière grésillante et vacillante qui se dérobe. Autant que ces oscillations bruissantes, se faisant et se défaisant au gré de lignes de fuite rendues insaisissables par leur distanciation apparente, la capacité de chacun à s’ouvrir à ce contenu musical instable constitue une part intégrante de l’expérience menée par Hafler Trio. Une procession sonore qu’il vous faudra suivre comme un dévot fluctuant entre questionnement et fascination.
Laurent Catala
http://www.octopus-enligne.com

The Hafler Trio - Ignotium Per Ignotius
CD - Korm Plastics

This is the seventh release by Korm Plastics in the special series of rereleases dedicated to the Hafler Trio. This work was first published by Touch in the summer of 1989 and is here repackaged in an elegant box made of cardboard and glossy paper, with a very refined booklet whose contents, quite surrealist and printed in reverse, are only readable with a mirror. This is undoubtedly a very important and complex project, almost rhizomatic in its sounds and listening facets, atmospheres and narrations, moments of fullness and studied voids. Elaborations suspended over new electronic experiments but still sharp in their flow, very suggestive and sensitive sound passages that highlight Andrew Mackenzie's long and productive musical career, still very lively and relevant.

Aurelio Cianciotta, www.neural.it

The Hafler Trio - Ignotium Per Ignotius
A cura di Roberto Michieletto
Indagare l'universo musicale di The Hafler Trio e impresa assurda, quasi come compiere un viaggio verso l'ignoto, considerati i presupposti su cui si sono sempre fondate le teorie creative della band, e la lunga serie di ristampe (in totale 14 e tutte accompagnate da lussuosissimi package) messa in atto dalla Korm Plastics non fa altro che avvalorare ulteriormente tale ipotesi. Nel caso di 'Ignotium Per Ignotius' stiamo parlando di un disco in origine rilasciato da Touch nel 1989 (all'epoca il primo come CD per The Hafler Trio) e che indagava la dicotomia che si genera contrapponendo silenzio e rumore. Infatti l'unico brano dell'album (sebbene vengano riportati 15 titoliS) si regge sullo sviluppo di trame noise ambientali minimaliste il cui impatto variabile (per intensita di volume e, di conseguenza, di udibilita) fa spesso trionfare le pause poi interrotte da porzioni di power elettronica stratificata. Considerato nell'ottica degli "audio-esperimenti" e del "non facile ascolto" puo anche avere un suo fascino. AncheS, www.dagheisha.com

The Hafler Trio "Ignotum Per Ignotius" re-issue

Rockerilla April 2007
Blow Up April 2007
Gonzo April 2007
Orkus May 2007
Orkus May 2007
Bad Alchemy May 2007
D-Side May 2007
Musique et Cultures Digitales May 2007
Rock-A-Rolla May 2007
Skug June 2007
Sonic Seducer June 2007
Mondo Sonoro Sep 2007

SOUNDTRACK TO "ALTERATION, PERCEPTION & RESISTANCE" — A COMPREHENSIVE EXERCISE
(Touch LP)

The first side has instrumentals that are all too frequently interrupted by a voice narrating about different aspects of perception. This gets a littly heavy-handed and preachy. The second side, however, is very good, reminding me much of Nurse With Wound. Despite this similarity, the Hafler Trio retain the characteristic sound of their previous LP. Sounds rather like it was recorded outside, but after all, this is a live recording. (L.A.Y.L.A.H. Records)

Maria V. Montgomery — OPTION 22

The Hafler Trio 'ALTERATION, PERCEPTION & RESISTANCE' ****
GABBLE GABBLE gaaah! The soundtrack to a comprehension excercise, it must be immediately stated that this experiment to engender another manner of perception is not as brain-bursting as LSD or as tasty as a banana sandwich. For what we have here is a revolving illusion as opposed to a revolution evolving. That's a sharp distinction.
A blunt observation is that this album is one of those jolly affairs which can be played at any speed, its precise spinning velocity depending on the listener's individual preference. For most, this will be 45 rpm.
A vaguely Teutonic voice, appropriate since we're dealing with noise surgery, issues forth instructions on how to alter one's aural reception apparatus while all manner of everyday and avant-musical tones slither through the grooves — voices, dogs, laughter, you know the sort of things, they're around you.
At 33 rpm, our guide to direct instead of passive perception sounds like a quaaluded hippie with a BSc in bullshit; at 45 rpm. a gynaecologist watching the birth of Christ; and at 78 rpm, the quack doc in the Donald Duck clan. Yes, this is fun for all the family. On the flip there's more noise of varying amplitudes and textures, mostly very relaxing but occasionally akin to being out of your mind on the Northern Line late at night. As an experiment in comprehension 'AP&R' fails because I distrust those who give instructions on how to understand the world. As entertainment it's obscure but amusing and, paradoxically, effortless.
~ Jack Barron

Bang!, the first Hafler Trio album, was released in 1984 and is reissued here with some additional tracks from the same period, some previously unreleased and some released in 1985 on a limited-edition Japanese cassette. The album contains three different types of material. The first is somewhat harsh ambient music, similar to their future direction. Some of the tracks, such as "The Morality of Sound" and "Psychophon Installation Test Tape," sound like untreated recordings of people moving about in rooms. Several, including "Owl Ionisation Recording," center around bird noises. Still others, such as "BANG!" and "Location Screening Exercise," use voice loops, but treated beyond the point of recognition. Second, there are news and radio broadcasts, looped and layered so that the voices and texts are often still recognizable. All of the material from the original release (tracks one through 15) is of these two types (although the opening moments of the CD include someone answering the phone at ROBOL). However, the supplemental material for the CD reissue include interviews and a demonstration cassette designed to encourage the fiction that the Hafler Trio was part of a research organization, ROBOL, working with controversial scientist Dr. Robert Spridgeon on issues relating to perception. There is even a straightforward albeit tantalizing interview with Dr. Edward Moolenbeek on his role in various experiments with ROBOL, the Hafler Trio, and Dr. Spridgeon. The liner notes and track titles also contribute to this fictional understanding. The album's overall effect is a spectrum of recognition, from overt to subliminal, and the relative brevity of the tracks makes for an overall disorientation, requiring more active listening than the group's later works. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

BANG! An Open Letter *****
(Touch LP)

OUCH! THIS is something altogether different again, not a video soundtrack, not some filmic overture, but a set of experiments which set the anvil and hammer clanging in the ear department.
There's something rather disturbing about it all too — like clips from some flickering horror show. Even though the parts used and abused are very obviously from everyday life.
The Haflers come on like bit players In ihe Outer Limits. Superflcially, their 'work' and connections with the deceased Roben Spridgeon may seem a little odd but on meeting (a brief encounter, revealed soon in your soaraway Sounds), there's more to all this than at first hits the ear.
This is not party music. It's not even music in any accepted form, but a rich sound tapestry exploring every little twitch of Ihe receptive, hearing brain. Well, all that might sound complicated, in fact it does.
In reality, the Haflers do manage to carry it all off. They don't get bogged down in self-indulgence, they're far loo honest for that. 'Bang' will open the mental floodgates with an enormous explosion, it's an education and a trial. This isn't easy listening but it's essential.

DAVE HENDERSON

HAFLER TRIO Bang! An Open Letter (Touch)

It should be stated that we went back and listened to this Hafler Trio album on the recommendation of AQ-customer Peter Becker as an intellectual challenge to the validity of The Conet Project. While the Hafler Trio has always been a difficult entity to decipher, my guess is that 'Bang! An Open Letter' is a fictitious piece of research in which aural information (from field recordings, interviews, and noise) is presented within the enigmatic headings of 'control' and/or 'controversy'. By merely insinuating these ideas within a vague context often surrounded by oblique sound generation, broken dadaist collages, or grey drones, The Hafler Trio undermine the authority of information to exist without any definitive context. I had always felt that the Trio itself had a fictitious quality surrounding their existence. Although Andrew McKensie and Chris Watson are most certainly 'real', the excessive history behind the third member — Edward Moolenbeek — always seemed suspect. Anyway, a perplexing if engaging record.

Jim's favorites at Aquarius Records

The Hafler Trio
'Bang' — An Open Letter
GREY AREA OF MUTE KUT1 CD

The Hafler Trio
Walk Gently Through The Gates Of Joy
GREY AREA OF MUTE KUT2 CD

The Hafler Trio
Seven Hours Sleep
GREY AREA OF MUTE KUT3 CD

The Hafler Trio started life in 1984 after Chris Watson left his previous group Cabaret Voltaire. CV's early, experimental electronic music of tape loops and steamhammer percussion alienated audiences to such a degree that concerts would often end in a riot. While such a reaction seems unlikely with The Hafler Trio, the group mined a similar field: 'bruitist' music made with unmusical instruments. In fact, to call it music is a misnomer: Watson once stated, "We are absolutely NOT concerned with music." As with the tenets of Dada and anti-art, which they drew on extensively, they questioned the fundamentals behind the preconceptions of what constitutes art, how art is evaluated and what value, if any, does it have.
They also excelled in the Futurist glorification of seeing common, everyday sounds as art. Throughout all of these reissues the trio juxtapose sampled pieces from daily life — trains, factory machines and media broadcasts — with bizarre tape loops, as if carrying on the cut-up exercises that William Burroughs and Brion Gysin initially explored.
Due to the nature of their work they soon became connected with Robol, an organisation for the research of sound and its effects on people, headed by Robert Spindgeaon. Its influence is all too apparent on their first album 'Bang' — An Open Letter {1984) which all too often sounds like they have regurgitated Robol's ideas verbatim and are merely conducting academic exercises to show how proficient they are.
It was with the later Walk Gently Through The Gates Of Joy (1985) and Seven Hours Asleep (1986), that they started to diverge and ultimately disassociate from Robol. Once free of the limited parameters of ideology they were able to investigate sound more deeply. Walk Gently revisits the Italian Futurists but along with the spoken word sections and the tape loops of common sounds (all jazzed up by being fed through numerous effects) they also dabble to a certain degree in Ambient, trance- like washes. While being somewhat removed from mere chill-out muzak, pieces such as "3 Remarkable Examples Of Air Turbulence" could turn a bonged- out, late night club audience on to their music.
The actual intentions of Seven Hours Asleep are mystifying at first. The object, it appears, is a journey into the surreal world of sleepless dreams. The sounds quickly flick from serene tranquility to paranoid tension and aggression. Whatever the intention, it certainly isn't restful nor conducive to a good night's sleep. If nothing else, it's a remarkable piece of sound experimentation exploring the subconscious world.
At times the Trio's 'scientific' approach is cold and barren, and the only possible reaction seems to be either intellectual approval (or disapproval). But despite this, The Hafler Trio tease and threaten the awareness of art in general and sound communication in particular: listen to be enlightened.

JON ROGERS, The Wire 125, July 1994

THE HAFLER TRIO. Bang; Walk Gently Through The Gates Of Joy & Seven Hours Sleep. Mute Records Kut 1, 2 & 3.
All in all Mute have (or are) releasing six albums in total by the Hafler Trio. I'm not sure if anyone out there is familiar with Mute music? With the possible exception of Erasure (who, in essence, still have much of what's essentially Mute in their music). Mute are what can only be described as specialists in electronic/synth music rather than just electronic. The Hafler Trio perhaps epitomise the extreme and most experimental of the 'Mute' sound spectrum. Not really music, more samples and sound experiments that don't all work but those that do, work well. I won't review each album as such, as they are all very similar in style and experimentation although don't let me mislead you into thinking they are the same musically — they're not. Admittedly the albums do get progressively more accessible and played in order you can see the developments.
There's a whole range of samples used, ranging from what can only be described as a news cast, repeated several times, overlayed and superimposed until just a mash of sound forces itself towards you. Anyone familiar with the term tape loop (ala Fripp and/or Eno) will recognise the concept on all these albums although the Hafler Trio really do stretch and pull this idea to even beyond its own boundaries.
There is a deep and fundamental 'quest', for want of a better description, of what the Trio are about: The principles behind the experiments, the possible reasons. Indeed, one track on the first album contains an interview with Dr. Edward Moolenbeck (a member of the Trio) on what it's all about.
Some of the later material is very effective as ambient backdrop and as such works well but there is a lot of difficult material accompanying the early, first album stuff. Still, no matter what the first or middle reactions are, you can rest assured that the end result will be one of either intense satisfaction or intense frustration.

Dave W

THE HAFLER TRIO / NURSE WITH WOUND — HIT AGAIN
(C45 on Staaltapes)
Two of my favorite groups working together! An all-time dream. But this is not an entirely new product by these two. It is The Hafler Trio at work adding music of Nurse With Wound. And if you take a good listening you will be able to recognize some of the original pieces used. A quiz for the freaks. The result is a very good collage of sound. But I think that, knowing The Hafler Trio and their mainly 'scientific' approach to sound, this is not entirely 'scientific' at all, and brings in a point of questioning whether the theories of The Hafler Trio are true or not. The cover is nicely printed, and in a new world-record in printing small letters is set.

Vital, 6 nov 1988

THE HAFLER TRIO — THE MURRAY FONTANA ORCHESTRA PLAYS THE HAFLER TRIO (CD by Staalplaat)
This is a re-release of the Staalplaat tape Nurse With Wound/The Hafler Trio which was released in 1987. On the CD cover there is no indication whatsoever of NWW having anything to do with these recordings but if you know NWW well enough you can easily identify typical NWW sounds. Steven Stapleton has submitted raw soundmaterial which has been mixed and processed by The Hafler Trio who also added their own sound material.
Overall the sounds of both projects are mixed together very well with maybe a few weak parts here and there. The sounds of NWW (with its typical humor) and the Hafler Trio (with a more down to earth feeling) fit together perfectly. The two tracks are quite weird in a way and you may need a few times to listen to them in order to find out all that is happening. But once you have captured this... (PD)

Vital, 41 may 1995

THE MURRAY FONTANA ORCHESTRA PLAYS THE HAFLER TRIO
Staalplaat STCD028

I like these guys. The CD itself is divided into two tracks with no mentionof what they are. Track one is 22:47 which contains about 7 differentsounscapes that were distinct enough to create a certain mood. Track two isjust as long with only about 5 different themes but they didn't at all getboring. If you do get a chance to listen to this make sure if you can tolisten to it LOUD and on a really expensive stereo. It adds anotherdimension. You can't miss the cover, it's fluoro orange with with fluorogreen print and no it's not a Kozic. Here is a quote from the sleeve."The atmosphere at the recording sessions have changed — before, they hitwith 'A Missing Sence'. And then, 'Astral Dustbin Dirge', the sessions werehopeful now, Hits later their confident. You don't need to listen to thesessions to tell that. You can tell just by looking. Confidence everywhere.In everyone."
Yes I agree with this precisely. Let me convey what I got out of this piece:sound signatures at varying pitch yet remains comfortable to the ears. Bang!sustained pitch and tone like a room full of tibetan monks. start stopeffect. ambient to noise. drawn out. nice but. minimal but effective use oftop end. different repetitive noises at different pitches. loop. loop. startstop. let the effect get into your conscience get into your conscience andthen take it away. vocal twists. sound signatures fade and cross fade. hodgepodge orchestra. hard to descibe. you have to listen.to experience.constantly evolving and reshaping into different scenario's. differentemotional theme's become apparent. very colorful. he's got everything going.water. frogs. grinding stones. it makes me wonder what sounds he originally used. bizarre stuff. cold and warm. swirls around my head then attacks mewith a jackhammer. listen.

rmcmulle

UNENTITLED (Compilation CD by These Records).
Compilations seldom give a very good view of what the involved artists stand for. That's one reason for buying this CD, since it gives three bands around 20 minutes each to prove their point. On the other hand the three involved are so well-known that they hardly need an introduction. The CD opens with zoviet*franco's 'Eleven Drops' and this is the most easy piece music on this CD. For those following the career of zoviet*france know that in the past 3 years the band switched to making a kind of experimental dance music. This long track is built around constant drones and cymbals and drums being hit (with added delay). Not really dance music altogether but interesting chill out music. Totally different is Jim O'Rourke. To my knowledge his first studio piece since his 3" CD for Metamkine. This is true electro-acoustic music. It starts out with what sounds as shortwave and after an abrupt silence, it is built up slowly with acoustic instruments, such as percussion, clarinets (multi-layered) and piano. The piece end in drones. Final piece is by The Hafler Trio, who use droning sounds that constant change, but keep on droning. A strange ending though, it seems like the tape got wrapped somewhere. This piece is not as 'ambient' as some of the other recent Hafler Trio pieces, so for a change that'ss good to hear. In all: a very good compilation, even though a general theme is lacking and these artists don't need no introduction through compilations. (FdW)

Vital, 42 july 1995

The Hafler Trio Play the Hafler Trio
Like several other Hafler Trio releases, this is a single-track CD with several individual pieces listed on the jacket. With the exception of "Metanoia," which is a reading (perhaps by Andrew McKenzie, who was the sole member of the Hafler Trio at the time this recording was released), all of the other pieces are built around layered drone loops. "Sheet Level Approach" uses water sounds prominently, including ocean waves, rain in gutters, and a running stream, but characteristically includes many additional layers of electronics. "Mesne" is centered around field recordings, including wind chimes, traffic, wind in the background, and very vivid stereophonic clicks, as from people or animals moving about. Some strange vocalese sounds from "Mesne" reappear in "The Detachment of Locational Sounds," another atmospheric drone piece. "Extract from Exercises" features a techno-like rhythm that looks ahead to the Hafler Trio's involvement with dance music on Designer Time and Masturbatorium. McKenzie's reading on "Metanoia" is a surreal meditation on time, money, stars, and self-mortification, similar in nature and treatment to the lecture on Bags of Cats. "The Same Room," which closes the album, is appropriately several tracks of a phonograph record at the end of the groove, layered into a cacophonous forest of clicks. Apart from "Metanoia," the remainder of the album is classic Hafler Trio — layered drones and loops with sufficient complexity to be interesting and the occasional alarm and sudden volume change to keep the unsuspecting listener awake. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

THE HAFLER TRIO PLAY THE HAFLER TRIO
Anckarström C3 CD

To say The Hafler trio confuse me is probably putting it mildly, but I am always interested to hear what new innovations they are trying to break with. Play is an intriguing and impressive collection of natural sounds. Chimes, gentlesurf and the human voice, resonating and manipulated in the unique MacKenzie way. The Hafler Trio are a strange commodity, impossible to categorise and at times difficult and painful to listen to. There are no tracks here as such, no music, no, just a seemingly endless stream of soundscapes that demand your constant attention. Listening to this eighteen floors up with the river and shipyard only a few hundred yards away, at times the sounds outside become indistinguishable from those inside. The Hafler Trio create environments that affect in one way or another. Our cats hidunder the bed and our five year old visitor blurted out "What a pretty noise!". I reckon these two reactions go some wayto explaining it all. Oh yes, and the packaging is exquisite. As regards to those of you that sent hate mail in response tomy review of the Fuck CD in Issue 5 you all grasped the forkend of the stick, I did like it. Where is your sense of humour?

T.E.Q., Robert H. King

The Hafler Trio
The Hafler Trio Play the Hafler Trio
(Staalplaat STCD 031) CD 63 minutes & Mastery of Money
(Touch TO:18) CD 75 minutes &
A Thirsty Fish
(Mute / The Grey Area KUT6) CD 71 minutes &
All That Rises Must Converge
(Mute / The Grey Area KUT5) CD 71 minutes &
Four Ways of Saying Five
(Mute / The Grey Area KUT4) CD 68 minutes

Polarised reactions: I hate the way the H3O assume that mucking around with CD track lengths is somehow a smart way of messing with the listener's preconceptions. On Play the Hafler Trio, 11 "actual" tracks are reduced to a single CD track, a move showing nothing but contempt for the listener who really deserves nothing less than fifty tracks, index points too; two of the other CDs above show a similar arrogance.

Polarised reactions: The H3O have always been well aware of the way in which context affects our perception of music. When the early H3O albums reissued by Mute were being made, the group created a fictional third member, "Dr Edward Moolenbeek", and surrounded their releases with lots of (again fictional) descriptions of advanced sonic research adapted from "Moolenbeek's" work, mixed in with genuine science to help make it more palatable. The results, for those who believed what they read, was that they approached the music in a state of heightened anticipation, and listened for and found effects they might not otherwise have noticed. The effects of this context on how the music was perceived were obviously fascinating, but hearing these recordings in retrospect, the context is gone, and with nothing-left-but-the-sounds, the rash of imitators have taken their toll. It's now often difficult to hear these three albums as being in any way different from any of a dozen other post-industrial abstract / ambient noise makers.

My least favourite of all these CDs is Mastery of Money (a comment on Andrew McKenzie's ability to rake it in?), which is as minimal as the Trio get, with waves of static and tiny inconsequential sounds taking a very long time to evolve into a more muffled ambient noise field. The retrospective Play The Hafler Trio is more immediate, with the best of the usual Hafler hallucinations being those that really cut across the mix and jolt the listener upright.

The Mute reissues are a mixed bag too. A Thirsty Fish compiles three sides of the double album originally released by Touch in 1987. It's first third owes less to John Cage's all-sounds-are-music ethos and more to Pierre Schaeffer's creation of musique concrete. To be more specific, it's a tape collage, of found sounds and artificially generated sounds, not music per se but perhaps a psychoactive sound source stew where, as ever, what you get from it will depend on what you bring to it. Personally, in this case I prefer genuine hardcore French musique concrete, but that's because I prefer music full stop. The remainder is much jucier, amongst the best examples of the Trio's distinctive piercing drones, music that really drills into your skull, churns your cerebral tissue around and leaves you with a delighted but glazed expression. All That Rises Must Converge brings Touch releases Brain Song and The Sea Org together, along with four unreleased tracks, and is a prime example of hindsight diminishing the interest value considerably.

Four Ways of Saying Five re-presents the Charrm album from 1986 consisting of lectures given by McKenzie in the Netherlands, alongside a twenty-minute collage of recordings from several performances given since then, The Butcher's Block. It's a game of two halves: McKenzie is no public speaker and his tedious voice is matched to tedious content, but The Butcher's Block joins Thirsty Fish and Play The Hafler Trio by containing some genuinely stimulating moments.

BD

THE COMPLETE GOLDEN HAMMER
The Grey Area of Mute Records/Touch 6 CDs

Assuming that the work of The Hafler Trio needs no introduction we have herean extended review of `The Golden Hammer' series. With the release of thefinal three CD's in the `Golden Hammer' series, most of The Hafler Trio'searly works are now available on CD. And more, because some of these CD'scontain interesting extra tracks, mostly previously unreleased. This articleprovides you with some background information. The series opened with therelease of `A Thirsty Fish' (Kut 6 — note that the word Kut is dutch,meaning `cunt'). Originally this was double LP on Touch, playing length ofaround 93 minutes. As you can guess it is impossible to reproduce this on 1CD, so one side is left of. The missing side will come as a mini CD thatwill be part of a package with book with texts by Andrew McKenzie, to bepublished by Psychick Release from Sweden (who also released Andrew's firstbook `Plucking Feathers From A Bald Frog'). `A Thirsty Fish' deals withreligious music from all religions around the world. When it came out as adouble LP I thought it to be the best Hafler Trio to date, but now it soundsrather dull, the recording quality seems rather weak. The next one was `AllThat Rises Must Converge' (Kut 5), and is much more interesting. It contains`Brain Song' 12", `The Sea Org' 10" and `Myriologue #2 and #3', which wereto appear on a three group compilation LP in New York (but that somehownever was released). Furthermore it includes two other unreleased pieces`MZVLENE' and `A Luna Kanula'. The last one, credited to Asburd, a group byMcKenzie and Ben Ponton (from Zoviet France). Another collaboration betweenMcKenzie and Ponton is making, under the name Psychophysicist. What is ofcourse a pity is that the booklet with `Sonic Paintings' is missing here.This goes in fact for all these re-issues. Booklets and inserts are missing.Often these booklets and inserts give nice background information(regardless the content is true or not). The re-issue of the live LP `Three Ways Of Saying Two' (which was recorded during their `lecture' tour, `Two Ways Of Saying Nothing'), came under the name `Four Ways Of Saying Five'(Kut 4). As a bonus you get `The Butchers Block', which is a collage of liverecordings made in eight different places. The Arnhem recording was madeduring a concert held after a 5 day workshop held by Andrew McKenzie in1988, The Karlsruhe concert was at the `Captured Music' festival in 1987.The waltz you hear is from the 's-Hertogenbosch concert (at V2 organisationin september 1986). `Seven Hours Sleep' (Kut 3) remains complete and nobonus tracks. More interesting is `Walk Gently Through The Gates Of Joy'(Kut 2). First you get `Alternation, Perception & Resistance', but that oneyou could have found on `A Bag Of Cats' (Touch/Spiral) CD, in a slightly different form. The b-side of that 12" is also here. Then there is theunknown track `Jenseits', followed by two pieces `Last Extant Recording FromThe Guard Bridge' and `Extracts From Just Physiological Intonation'.Although the cover only says that this last piece comes from a bootleg 12" from Germany, I assume that the first one comes also from this 12". The remaining two pieces are unreleased, although the final track `Introductory Function' can be found on the `Bang — An Open Letter' CD as well, in a slightly different form. That `Bang' CD (Kut 1) is of course the very first LP by The Hafler Trio, from 1984. After that there are extracts from `Hotondo Kiki Torenai'. This is a rare japanese cassette only (on John Duncan's label AQM), and is not so much a music release, but more a radiodocumentary about THT. On this tape you'll also find `The Hafler Trio Demonstration Cassette', also present on this CD. What is called here `Extracts from `Hotondo' #2', is not the most interesting piece, and it is apity that the complete `Hotondo' is not here (or a seperate release). The tape is hilarious for it's interviews and semi-intellectual talking. Buyingthese six CD's will give you a lot of extra tracks, and of course a bettersound quality, which, in THT's case, is absolute necessary. It is a pitythat the original booklets and inserts are missing, and that the background information on the unreleased material is not so extended.

Frans de Waard (Vital, Issue 38S)

The Hafler Trio: A Thirsy Fish. Touch Records. Kaksi levyä 90 mk. (Digelius).
The Hafler Trio have made many records, been included in several recording collections but still it's members do not consider themselves musicians, much less call their music music.
Or they do, if one understands music as all forms of organized sound which have some function or task. On this record these are diverse "religious" sounds (animals, humans, nature). From these, Hafler Trio has collected an impressive 93-minute, carefully organized and layered electroacoustic collage in which the location, duration and intensity of each sound has an important meaning.
A Thirsty Fish demands the utmost attention: it simply doesn't unfold/reveal itself without concentration and will submit to being background music.
Ultra of the month.

Harri Uusitorppa

A THIRSTY FISH
(Touch 2LP)

The Hafler Trio has made numerous albums, appeared on several compilations, and according to NMDS, this double LP is their swan song. If this is true, then this is a beautiful way to go. The music is beatless, sometimes rhythmless sound collage similar to the work of Ligeti and the electroacoustics of Xenakis. It's very detailed and layered. It's also ideal headphone food as the trio works with every aspect of sound size, location, duration, intensity, etc. Side one moves from one thing to another fairly quickly and is intense for brief periods. Plenty of motion and dynamics. Side two and three share a lot of the same sounds, but the former is expansive, majestic, while the latter somewhat tense, unsettling. The opening of side three is fantastic, and side four is a summary of sorts without being a replica. I think casual listening does this music an injustice as the detail, layers, and textures really unfold upon immersion. Generally mild-mannered and subtly complex, the record doesn't command attention. However, it deserves it. An impressive work I can easily recommend.

Tom Grove — OPTION 21

A THIRSTY FISH
(The Grey Area of Mute Records/Touch CD)

Seven tracks credited, yet only three tracks on the CD makes a sort of logic. Indeed the titles have a sort of Zen mind-nudging feel to them, which was compounded by reading the interview in TEQ while reviewing this. It opens with a bizarre audio-montage of voice, ambience, found sound & industrial sample. It might well be described as a DAVID LYNCH abstract surreal audio statement — a myriad short phrases featuring all manner of sounds, some muffled, some clear, some haunting like a distant call to prayer heard from the desert outside an Eastern city, another from a sterile room in a laboratory, another eavesdropping a conference from afar, other sounds like cross sections of THE HATERS' music. The second track holds mad laughter within it's cold, echoing walls, with warm humming of cold, heartless machines growing from distant subterranean caves. Smooth machine sounds phase in loops, like the souls of the long lost, singing in the very ghosts of human voice. More strange abstractions grow, ambient recordings of muggy warm factories housing apparently benign machines. Often these snatches of sound are calming, yet arranged in such a way that you cannot relax — any moment it could burst into disharmonic noise. An ambient mix of echoed fireworks makes a particularly interesting phrase, followed by what I assume is a montage of water being 'passed'. The next piece, perhaps the longest on the album, leaves the calming sounds to use more interesting combinations of distant human voice, erased of individualism, honed to trace elements. Then we encounter a flock of sheep, again slightly treated, manipulated into a more calming soundtrack. Later on there's the sound of a storm, as heard from a damp porch, with various bass sounds creating a form of rhythm & metal sounds appearing minimally. This fades into another calm-yet-slightly-disturbing phrase with pteradactyl-like sea bird screams & muffled human voice utters. Each phase reappears, yet different, altered or viewed from a different angle. This gives way to smoother sounds, a calming, pacifying drift of non-musical, honed noise. Finally, after having been lulled into a relaxed state for about 10 minutes, you are awakened by muffled voice answering the telephone. THE HAFLER TRIO will continue to intrigue listeners with their audio-abstract sound montages, hopefully for years to come. I'm not an expert in their music, but am beginning to appreciate it more & more. THE GREY AREA should be releasing more soon, but this should sate the gnawing pangs of hunger until then.

ANTONY BURNHAM for METAMORPHIC JOURNEYMAN

THE HAFLER TRIO: A THIRSTY FISH

Trying to review a HAFLER TRIO record is like trying to explain Virtual Reality to a chimpanzee. This is the MUTE re-issue of one of their earlier recordings. I tend to think of HAFLER TRIO records not as music, but more of audio experiments. This is no exception, in places the sounds are ambient, atmospheric, lifting the listener into the air. Then the next second screeching, scraping sounds destroy the illusion, leaving the listener to fall back to the ground. The whole of the CD is like this, sounds are pulled from anywhere, everywhere and spliced together — it seems difficult to imagine people actually 'sitting down' and recording it at all. The CD contains 3 tracks (although the CD case mentions 7), all lasting 20 minutes plus. My favourite is track two, the more ambient of the three. To be honest, I can't take too much of the 'chopped up' sounds bit, but the more ambient stuff appeals to me a lot. Everyone should own at least one HAFLER TRIO release, though I'm not too sure why......

IMPULSE #4

Thirsty Fish of artist Hafler Trio

1. Classic Hafler trio (rate: 5)
One of the finest of their recordings, McKenzie could just do no wrong at this point and was more or less the lord and saviour of experimental music in the 1980s. These caused intense debate about whether or not he was making music, but this is indeed great music. The title is a sufi metaphor, and some of the record is ostensibly based on Sufi and Fourth Way principles combined with Psychophysical theories, as much of his music was at this time. Throw in a fair amount of Dada (the trio was never actually indeed a trio) with electro acoustics and location recordings/found sound, and the usual tip of the hat to the gysin/burroughs recordings. One of their best.

2. One rough ride! (rate: 5)
You don't necessarily buy Hafler Trio releases because they're going to be 'easy listening'...and this is no exception. In fact, this could better be termed 'uneasy listening'. "A Thirsty Fish" is the aural equivalent of being transformed into a doggie toy and being violently shaken around by a rottweiler. Sound sources shift and jump with maximal contrast from one type to another, with seeming illogic. Snippets of voices and other semi-recognizable sounds flit by, just fast enough to realize what they are, but not to comprehend them. And just as you get used to one set of aural circumstances, you're flung headlong into something else. Normally, this would be a huge laundry-list of negatives...but in the course of playing with all of these negative aesthetics, Andrew McKenzie crafts a work that is a seeming parallel to the surging bewilderment of the modern landscape. Hard to take, and downright devastating if taken at one sitting, this album is a tour-de-force in what can be accomplished by musique concrete methods, even in this day and age. And in the class of this sort of music, it ranks right up there with works by luminaries of sonic assemblage such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Max Neuhaus, Pierre Henry, et al.

3. Where am I? Who am I? (rate: 5)
Found tapes, aural collage, surreal and all too real at the same time. One of the most memorable experiences of my life was listening to this CD in my Discman while waiting in line for my plane ticket at the airport. The busy crowd noises and banging doors on the disc blended almost imperceptibly with the "real" noise around me to the point where I could no longer tell the difference. In fact, I didn't *want* to know the difference. By the way, I missed my flight.

source

HAFLER TRIO
A THIRSTY FISH
KORM PLASTICS 2XCD

BY PHIL ENGLAND (THE WIRE ISSUE 266 APRIL 2006)

This 1987 release finally sees the light of day once more with the approval and cooperation of The Hafler Trio, after a botched Mute/Grey Area early 90s reissue which crammed three quarters of the original double LP onto a single CD.
       Interviewed in 1993, Andrew McKenzie remembered A Thirsty Fish as "a lot of work. For years I made all these incredibly complex things but I had nothing except a TEAC four track reel-to-reel. I didn't even have a mixing desk, I had a switcher box where you could turn four channels into two. There's nothing in it that's not some kind of religious or spiritual material, whether it's readings or preachers or people undergoing past life regressions... Spiritual is a terrible word, but essential experiences."
       An impressively accomplished work of considerable complexity, A Thirsty Fish is dense, choppy and overloaded with information. Perhaps it was McKenzie's very lack of means that forced him to consider alternatives to more primitive manipulations such as speed changes and cut-ups. There is a constant turnover of new material (some of the more identifiable sound sources include the sound of a saucepan filling with water, bird calls and human voices), with no themes developed for any length of time or returned to later; it only starts to pull back in its penultimate section.
       The result is a series of widescreen, multi-layered events — the source material is abstracted, transformed and transfigured into sound with transportative potential. Considering the limited means at McKenzie's disposal, it's an extraordinarily imaginative work.

THE HAFLER TRIO A Thirsty Fish (Korm Plastics) 2cd

When Mute reissued the Golden Hammer series by The Hafler Trio in the mid '90s as part of their Grey Area reissue campaign of industrial and post-industrial masterpieces, Mute dropped nearly 25 minutes of music from The Hafler Trio's perennially obtuse A Thirsty Fish. Nearly a decade later as Korm Plastics has been lovingly reissuing The Hafler Trio's early recordings, A Thirsty Fish now gets a proper re-release as a double disc set, with all of the material from the original 2LP presented in a remastered form. In an interview with Option magazine back in the late '80s, The Hafler Trio's Andrew McKenzie explained that the intent of A Thirsty Fish was "to confuse people until they couldn't think anymore, so they'd have to feel. It was conjuring. The idea was and still is to a certain extent i watch this hand while the other hand goes into the pockets. The stuff that everybody sees is not actually the whole point. People can't see the whole point because it's like this covert action. But I'm still talking around it, I'm not going to put it in one easy bite-size piece because that would destroy the whole point of what I'm doing. I have a very definite intent, but if I talk about it, it will evaporate. If I put it into words, you'll just have an idea again i and then it's gone. All the stuff you see on the packaging, and the sounds in fact themselves, all that stuff Is just the fluff. The real stuff is actually going on somewhere else." Given the oblique collage techniques of electrified voices, erratically pitch-shifted tape modulations, puncturing noises, pure sine-wave generation, and decontextualized media samples, The Hafler Trio again succeeds in utter confusion.

www.aquariusrecords.org

THE HAFLER TRIO — DISLOCATION
(C49 on Staalplaat documentatieserie 00K).

The most recent work from them which differs from their previous work. Untill now most of their music consisted of frequencies which were cut into short ongoing pieces. On this tape you will hear 'location recordings', sounds from an unindetifable nature. Certainly not easy music to listen to, but then that is not the purpose of The Hafler Trio. They give information about how we are influenced by the us surrounding frequencies.

Vital, 2 jan 1988

PSYCHOPHYSICIST
(Side Effects DFX18 CD)

Take a few slightly technical pamphlets with a load of multi-syllabilicterminology, add some sine tone generators, stir in some synapses from Adi Newton and Andy McKenzie and voila, another pseudo-scientific CD which doeslittle to stir the stumps or put spurs in yer stirrups. Apparently the Ircamfacilities were persuaded into letting these twins of fire fiddle with theircomputer systems...Pierre was no doubt on holiday...and the result is thisrather tired, dated sounding product masquerading as research. The usual namesare mentioned in the booklet in an attempt to give this an air ofauthority...roll out Nicky Tesla, Hans Jenny and Professor Gavreau. If this lastis unfamiliar to you, don't feel inadequate...he's the bloke who designed thelow-frequency sound cannons for the French ubercops in the sixties, which werethe final solution to dispensing with unruly long-haired students, as they areextremely effectively at re-arranging internal organs without requiring invasivesurgery. Anyway. Enuff !. The tracks yield no surprises which is a pity as Iwould have thought any collaboration between these two would have been slightlymore dangerous. Fortunately we are spared any vocals (by either of them) as weplough through the predictable fade-ups/fade-downs and occasional abruptendings. The sound-constructions may be more effective if the listener is in theright mood...perhaps acres of trendy chemical amusement aids or a crash course in Yogic technique will help. (MP)

The Square Root Of Sub (Vital)

PSYCHOPHYSICIST s/t (Side Effects)

Psychophysicist is a one off collaboration recorded back in 1994 between Andrew McKenzie (better known as the Hafler Trio) and Adi Newton (Clock DVA, The Anti Group Conspiracy). The two claim to be working under a Gurdjieffian approach to science and sound as a method towards metaphysical knowledge and gnostic understanding of the universe. That said, McKenzie has been known to exaggerate the theoretical statements behind his sound work and fabricate fictional conspiracies around the research of Dr. Edward Moolenbeek and Robert Spridgeon (both of which are McKenzie pseudonyms). Like the beloved Museum of Jurassic Technology, McKenzie's research is a tangled web of fact, fiction, and kooky philosophies wrapped up in faux-authoritarian language. Thus, anything that McKenzie states about his work needs to be read with a close attention to detail to discover what his true intentions may be.

Sonically speaking, both McKenzie and Newton are no slouches, although some of Clock DVA recordings are painfully dated within Industrial culture. The Psychophysicist collaboration brings together their mutual interests in psychoacoustics — the ability of sound to affect the mind and body in profound ways. Within the record, complex hypnotic sweeps of radio static are processed to resemble the tonal patterns of interlocking sinewaves, sounding much more like Hafler Trio than The Anti Group and much more than Clock DVA. Furthermore, close observers of the Hafler Trio's work will recognize elements from "Masturbatorium" and "Mastery of Money," as the recycling of sound elements within different contexts had become an increasingly important agenda for McKenzie throughout the mid-90s. As the Hafler Trio albums — once overflowing experimental bins across the globe — are now becoming scarce, this would make an excellent introduction into McKenzie's work.

Jim's favorites at Aquarius Records

RIGHT HERE WHERE YOU ARE SITTING NOW (7" by Povertech)
UTTERANCES (LP by Soleilmoon)

Andrew McKenzie has discovered the beauty and power of limited vinyl releases.The pain in the ass of the collector, because the prices are pretty high. Butthat discussion is different matter. Let's stick to what is offered here. The 7" features, according to the cover, guitar, bass, drum and voices. Not that Icould have told you, since the trio treated them beyond recognition. I assumethe pressing of this record is not very good, or maybe I'm missing a point here.It seems as if both tracks were put together rather hastily. I had much more joyfrom the LP. Side A builds slowly in ambient spheres with what seems a sampledguitar (but now the cover doesn't mention it — damm) and somewhere half way through some treated organs take over to close the album in similar ambient textures. The flip side starts out again quietly but somewhere some rhythm is faded — not as housy as the 12" The Hafler once did, but a strong continousflow. Added are the well processed sounds that have become a trio trademark. In all it's minimalist efforts a strong album and among the recent ltd's from The Hafler Trio this one wins.

Frans de Waard (Vital)

THE HAFLER TRIO "An Utterance Of The Supreme Ventriloquist" (Soleilmoon)
1996 was a particularly quiet year for the Hafler Trio; whereas in this day and age some nine years later, there's a major Hafler Trio release coming out almost every month or so. While the man behind the Hafler Trio — Andrew M. McKenzie — might like you to believe this or that about his slow down in activity during the mid '90s, his paucity of recordings was simply due to the fact that his job at the time kept from his art. How pleasantly mundane of the Gnostic sound sorcerer! Nonetheless, McKenzie did release Utterance of the Supreme Ventriloquist as a very expensive LP edition through Soleilmoon. While it doesn't belong to any of the great triologies (Kill The King / Mastery of Money / How To Reform Mankind) or serial works (The Golden Hammer series), this album fluidly introduces many of the pristine compositions of electric minimalism that grace his recent outpouring of work (How To Slice A Loaf of Bread, etc.), but also enjoys many of the discordant, psychoactive jolts and flourishes of those aforementioned earlier works. Glossalaliac ripples of feedback, terse repetitions of mechanoid rhythms, and immaculate drones meander through a whole host of psychologically tinged soundfields from frightening to holy to meditative to menacing. Beautifully packaged in the same style as the reissues found on Korm Plastics.
Aquarius Records

The Hafler Trio
AN UTTERANCE OF THE SUPREME VENTRILOQUIST
Soleilmoon

Behind the gauzy, dura-translucent cover art and the dense, thoughtful phraseology lies the core of something strangely hollow, something quite chilling and fearless. Andrew McKenzie, now officially a citizen (?) of the Icelandic Republic, stands alone on another universally obscure and transcendent release whose focused drones and meandering spotlights of synchronized discord are nothing short of astounding. Recorded back in 1996, and dedicated to Hildur Rún Hauksdóttir, this was previously available exclusively in a limited edition of 451 hand-numbered vinyls, but now we Technics-less folk can gather round in ecstasy to witness the ultimate act of homage, as McKenzie's gyrating, joyful bumper car rides into the solitude of a howling wind. He may have made a courageous recovery, but the rest of us are, obsessively, still ill for the stunted planes of atmosphere he travels with or without us. It's a dramatic listen, something almost too sacred to find critical words to ink properly. -TJN, Paris Transatlantic magazine

NEGENTROPY
with the assistance of Adi Newton
(Anckarström M11/Ash International # Ash 1.6 LP)

Negentropy (recorded with the Anti Group's Adi Newton) has some brutallyrepetitive, doomy piano to its name. This owe's alot to minimalism'sadditive process, but uses the piano almost as if it were an electronicdrone generator and rhythm machine. Its an unusual departure for the Trio,but a successful one. Interesting cover concept: watch the gold paintgradually decay and be replaced by hundreds of your fingerprints.
EST

The final release in the Anckarström series (M11) finally sees daylightat last. In some respects reminiscent of Gurdjieff's compositions for piano — sparse yet dense metranomic tones, with special sonic and spatial treatments.

H3ÖH
(Ash International # Ash 1.3 LP/CD)

"The marvellous M.N.O. Gol'fish must remain my aural companion. Stunning,mesmeric, brilliantly constructed trance this is perhaps the most unlikelyrecord that The Hafler Trio could release. The A side has an almost epicquality, stretching, weaving and interlocking sounds, introducingcompleting unexpected elements (including the first coughing solo in thehistory of Techno) and gelling them together around a ridiculously catchyhookline. The flip side is another extended piece, a little less staccato,more flowing and equally alive with shifting unpredictable sounds andsamples. Complex house for those with brains as well as ears."

ORGAN

"Ambient dub, mit StringSounds und einam Hang zum Monumentalen, sowle Tribale inschag auf der Rücksette. Platte mit wirklich guten schlichenPassagen und geschmacklichen Ausrutschern."

Kill the King
The first major album after Watson left, Kill the King was recorded for Kim Cascone's Silent Records, a home for isolationist ambience throughout the world. With the help of Adi Newton and John Duncan, among others, Andrew McKenzie constructed over an hour of fathomless space music, reliant on field recordings as well as various electronics, and similar in fact to Cascone's work as PGR. The beginning of a new period for Hafler Trio, and an excellent christening. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide

THE HAFLER TRIO — KILL THE KING (CD by Korm Plastics)
Being one of the heroes of new music, The Hafler Trio have had an extensive influence on the work of many others, and not only because Mr. McKenzie has chosen to share his experience through workshops. The music itself has done that, more than anything else. 'Kill the king' is a rerelease, remastered for this CD. The remastering has in fact been so thorough that we can now enjoy this work for the full 73 minutes. There is one single track on the disc, but there are certainly parts to be distinguished (besides that, the separate titles suggest seven parts). The music is quite what one would expect from earlier Hafler Trio work: drony ambiences with overlays of other sounds and rythmic elements here and there, most of these based on loops. What is pretty amazing is the extensive use of FX, something I seem to have forgotten in the past years, but is absolutely worth catching up on again. One big advantage of this process is the fact that the origins of the sound material vanish, leaving the listener with only a more or less abstract result. The development of the parts is rather slow, on the verge of becoming ambient, but the timing is just right to escape this. So the music is doing the right thing. As with all Hafler Trio releases, this one comes in a very special cover with a booklet. Normally I don't spend a great deal of attention on this, but in this case I will have to make an exception. The booklet is black with white text, but covered in half transparent paper, also with text, also half transparent. I will not even begin to talk about the text, but the result of the white text on the black paper is almost identical to the one on the cover: after a while everything starts to shimmer and fade away! This hallucinatory effect adds to the music, so cover and content become quite entangled. Which is very well done of course! The text also adds to this, by the way. A must for every Hafler Trio fan (and all who are not, but simply like good music and a nice cover). (MR)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl

Vital 405

THE HAFLER TRIO: Kill The King
Korm Plastics | CD

With its dust jacket of translucent paper completely covered in barely-decipherable text, the long-awaited reissue of The Hafler Trio's Kill The King is an art-object seeming even more obfuscated and austere than ever. Fully remastered (the first pressing, issued by Staalplaat and Silent Records in 1991, reportedly had its share of problems), this release marks the first in what promises to be a very impressive series of reissues from Korm Plastics, resuscitating long-unavailable-or-otherwise-concealed recordings, texts, images, and various to-doings from The Hafler Trio's back catalogue. And what a better place to start than with Kill the King, one if his most imaginative and compelling works (for this listener, at least), which may or may not consist of seven parts, though there is a single track here, with short pauses and breaks, shifts in direction. The Hafler Trio's sound world is one which leaves the listener in wonder (with its soft voices, drones, whispers, rhythmic noises, loops, more drones, ambiences, unfathomable combinations), attempting to piece together the pieces of a puzzle, discern the sources in abstract, otherworldly sounds, or, as a reader of the texts that accompany these recordings, to assemble meaning from the perplexing formulations, flashes of narrative, the symbols of transformation. We may not fully understand all of what is being revealed here, with the Hafler Trio one always has the sense that there is something much larger at work, but the experiences are always unique, challenging, and unforgettable. [Richard di Santo]

HAFLER TRIO
KILL THE KING
KORM PLASTICS KPKTK CD

BY JIM HAYNES

Its a dangerous proposition to take sound, image, word or anything from The Hafler Trio at face value, since their history is dotted with deliberate misinformation, sleights of hand and gnostic trickery. A particularly overt example is on their debut Bang! An Open Letter, on which they perpetuated a myth about two acoustic engineers Robert Spridgeon and Dr Edward Moolenbeek, who had supposedly passed on a wealth of psychoacoustic research for The Hafler Trio to continue. This turns out to be fiction, but the tall tale was a good one, especially with the album's masterful cut 'n' paste collage as an accompaniment.
By the late 80's, the original partnership between Andrew McKenzie and Chris Watson came to an end, with McKenzie continuing to hold the reigns of the Trio. McKenzie's strategies and philosophies have become more and more complex over the years. On occasion, he appears to reveal those strategies in a supposed act of benevolence towards us poor mortals who foolishly seek to find a meaning, an experience, something within his work.
13 years after its initial release, which was marred with digital bit rot, Kill The King remains a brilliant if baffling production. It opens with a two minute reading from an unknown woman with a Germanic accent. She speaks in a deliberate monotone about the quality of her voice. Yet when she utters the statement "It will not be raised or lowered, no matter what happens", inflections carry her voice up and down and undermine the syntax of that statement. Coupled with McKenzie's gritty treatment of the voice, this brief introduction acts as a template for the remainder of the album in which obvious semiological guides are no longer valid, yet an acute intellect is still at work.
In this context Kill The King reads as a unique and incredibly personal form of communication through the physicality of sound, which holds its own peculiar set of of nuances and neologisms. During the ensuing 70 minutes, McKenzie in occasional collaboration with John Duncan and Kbigniew Karkowski, recontextualises a huge wealth of synthetic and found sounds to form the basis of this aural language. Here, data crunched drones are suspended within an electrified ether, the noxious rasp of a modem nestles against corroded pulsations, and oxygenated whispers reverberate through and eerie ambience. These passages do not impart any specifics — instead, they are selections from a serial taxonomy of moods and emotions, in particular awe, horror, tension and fear. Kill The King succeeds in pulling together all of these grandiose ideas and ridiculous concepts by the sheer force of their conviction that sound has a profound ability to affect the human body and spirit.

THE WIRE ISSUE 242 APRIL 2004

HAFLER TRIO Kill The King (Korm Plastics)
In the ever expanding catalog of the Hafler Trio, Kill The King may be the Hafler Trio's masterpiece. Originally released back in 1991 as a co-production between Staalplaat and Silent Records, Kill The King suffered the fate of many records pressed up at that time: digital bit-rot. In fact much of the Silent stock had to be destroyed; but thankfully Frans De Waard, who had been instrumental in the European half of the co-production, has now arranged for the reissue of this fantastic album on his Korm Plastics label.
Housed in the same oversized folio that came with the original, Andrew McKenzie — currently the only member of the Trio, although Kill The King features some collaborative work with John Duncan and Zbigniew Karkowski — wrapped this version in an extra vellum sleeve covered with his signature enigmatic texts. The sound program for Kill The King begins with a crackly, muffled recording of an unknown woman with a thick Northern European accent reciting a complex text in English. Her intentional monotone gives hints at the records theme: difficulties in communication; but as with all Hafler Trio narratives, they are not easily discerned. The voice is buried in hiss. Her accented monotone doesn't help matters, either. That said, this is a quintessential Hafler Trio strategy in setting the stage for the rest of the album. An influx of oxygenated drones usurps the voice and majestically claims the stereofield, resembling the same timbres of Jonathan Coleclough and Andrew Chalk's Sumac. Yet, the pacing of Kill The King is far more active than Sumac and thus more than the recent Halfer Trio productions, deftly shifting the stage to gravelly textures, data-crunched noises, dental drills, and cryptic voices run in reverse, all underpinned by various tones.
Kill The King is a difficult album to reduce to a few words, and with the band's no-mp3-samples policy, you can only take our word for it that this is one of his greatest works.

http://www.aquariusrecords.org

The Hafler Trio "Kill the King"
by: Zero Sharp

Alongside their music, one of the most interesting things about the Hafler Trio is the fact that they spread so much incorrect and inaccurate information regarding themselves that its rather difficult to figure out much about them. One thing is clear, the Hafler Trio has been around for quite a while, and in that time, they've put out quite a number of brilliant pioneering releases. It's rather hard to classify their work as they range from sonic research lectures with background soundscapes to things sounding much like dance tracks. However, until recently, much of it was very out of print. Andrew MacKenzie, the sole remaining member of the group (at most, it was a duo with a third cited, but possibly non-existent, or at the very least deceased), is starting to work to get many of the older classic releases reprinted in shiny new packaging.

"Kill the King" was originally the first album in a trilogy that is considered some of the Hafler Trio's best work to date. (The other two, "Mastery of Money" and "How to Reform Mankind," are also up for repressing at some later date.) The repressing and packaging is done extremely tastefully and well, with one exception. As I don't have the original, I cannot verify this, however, this pressing has no track breaks. I can appreciate the art of it if it was, indeed, intentional, however, for an album that's over an hour long with seven track names listed, it's a bit of a drag. Music-wise, the album is incredible. It starts with "maps of sand dunes," a woman speaking in a near monotone about changing various aspects of her voice. The irony is not lost on the listener, and the whole exercise is rather entertaining. About eleven minutes in, crackling sounds in the background are joined by very controlled scream sounds, giving a haunting impression of robotic need. One of the brilliant pieces hits its stride at around sixteen minutes in; a cold drone with mechanical and computeresque background give the impression that one is floating in space with HAL as your only companion. The nice thing about not having those pesky track breaks is the elegance the Hafler Trio brings in new themes and tracks. The pieces are all linked slowly together and they are allowed to mix liberally, and the divisions of where a new song starts and another ends are not, in fact, clear at all. Thirty minutes in comes one of the best transitions as faint screaming starts in one ear overtaking quick, cold digital oscillation. Simple tones are brought in later, and at times, it seems even as the music will break out into beat. Towards the end, the soundscapes get a little more noisy, but never become outright violent. Elegance is central to this work, and the Hafler Trio execute it flawlessly. This album is a journey through territory that seems as if it should be familiar, and the fact that it is always slightly unclassifiable is what makes the trip all the more interesting in the face of the more standard ambient music out there.

I highly recommend getting this; even now, this makes the music in genres close to the niche this inhabits pale in comparison.

source

THE HAFLER TRIO — MASTERY OF MONEY
Touch T0:11 CD

It's about time a few more eyes were opened to The Hafler Trio. The UK press seem content to let their unique material slip the public's view, which, when you consider the intelligence of Andrew MacKenzie and level of perfection of his work is somewhat bewildering. You would have thought the high-brow paper's would at least have shed some academic light on the subject, but no, without any support it's left to Touch to keep chipping away at the disinformation media with ground-breaking and quality releases. Mastery Of Money is yet another Hafler Trio gem, entrancing to the hilt with subde, shifting movement and re-tuned channelling frequencies. Shaping effortlessly, this rolling mass of sound screams distantly with the power of earthquake capacity. A body beautiful creation. Are you listening?

T.E.Q., Deadhead

Mastery of Money is the second part of a trilogy the Hafler Trio released in the early 1990s. Each release in the series (the others are Kill the King and How to Reform Mankind) has similar oversize packaging, including a booklet with texts and photos for each piece on the CD. Musically the trilogy explores similar territory as well, with less emphasis on recognizable voices and more on field recordings, layered loops, and drones. "Empty Rooms and Their Occupants," for example, is a long drone piece with active inner sounds, fading in and out, subtly changing pitch while maintaining a steady state. "Callibre" and "Eloise C" are both based on field recordings. The former contains sirens, church bells, car horns, sounds of walking, announcement voices, all surrounded by a gentle outdoor-like ambience. The latter is more abstract, with wind sounds combined with radio static and frequency manipulation. The group still plays with perceptions, but additionally they have now moved their attention to the CD itself. Although there are titles and credits for seven pieces, the album contains 34 tracks which bear no relation to the pieces at all, but instead comprise two very long tracks (46:34 and 27:50) which sandwich 34 tracks so short that they are under the standard for track length, all one to three seconds in duration. All of the short tracks are contained within Splitting the Stick. The album's closing moments are the laugh box, a toy from the late 1960s with a built-in belly laugh, an echoing and reverberating commentary from this mysterious group. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

How to Reform Mankind
The final entry in the Hafler Trio's trilogy opens with two quiet pieces similar to the previous volumes, Kill the King and Mastery of Money, but the first half of Emasculation of Contempt shows them entering new territory. A jagged and a rhythmic piano loop, layered with wails, rattles, and environmental noise, is harsh and agitated. Although the middle of the piece is a reverberating, layered drone more typical of the previous releases, the last third returns with another harsh, rhythmic loop. The harsh drones and loops continue through the rest of the album, not approaching anything peaceful until a long sonar loop in the album's closing moments. This album concludes the trilogy which is the Hafler Trio's major work to date by moving out of the ambience which had become their hallmark and into a more aggressive and harsh territory. The trilogy also concluded a prolific period for the group, as there were no further new releases except for expensive and rare limited editions for more than five years. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

THE HAFLER TRIO — HOW TO REFORM MANKIND (CD by Korm Plastics, 2004)
This album have been originally released by Touch in 1992, when I was 12 years old and probably listening Roxette, U2 and Guns. Now, about 12 years later, it's re-issued by the fine label for various selective kinds of music — Korm Plastics from The Netherlands. So, now is the first time I've had a chance to listen to this release, actually it's also the first release ever I'm listening from The Hafler Trio, that's Andrew McKenzie. I was curious to hear something from The Hafler Trio after reading many positive reviews about his music here at Vital. And I like it, quite a lot. 'How to reform mankind' is made of 7 pieces with various lengths. The music is generally in the stretched-out atmospheric areas, more unsettling compared to the regular ambient, or in other words it's what's considered to be drone music these days. There are (post)industrial moments sometimes, as in tracks 4, 5 and elsewhere, with a slight noisy touch. One of the best things in this music is that, as Daniel Menche for example and others too, while being experimental it's also very musical. It doesn't lose it's musical contents for the sake of the experiments with the sound. As Troum the previous year, The Hafler Trio will be on my list of the best discoveries in 2005. (BR, Vital 458)

The Halfer Trio — How To Reform Mankind (CD, Korm Plastics)
Following the scientific model in which the researcher returns to the same problem set with slight variations to better understand the solutions that come from those equations, The Hafler Trio have often recontextualised previously issued sounds in alternative environments and compositions. Originally released in 1993, How To Reform Mankind is the final entry to the 'trilogy in three parts' alonside Kill The King and Mastery Of Money, and picks up on this self-recycling theme. The Halfer Trio's Andrew McKenzie lifts a dreamy mirage of feedback from Walk Through The Gates Of Joy and notably the piano leitmotif that comprised the Negentropy album. Far from presenting a taxonomic exercise of early successes, McKenzie sets ip a psychological interplay between sound and momeory, in which the signposts from previous works are no longer recognisable. Surrounded by field recordings smeared into an industrial grey, sonar pings and eerie vocal shriekings, How To Reform Mankind is ultimately another magnificent, disorientating conundrum. (Jim Haynes in The Wire 253/March 2005)

THE HAFLER TRIO How To Reform Mankind (Korm Plastics) cd
How To Reform Mankind marks yet another entry in the reissue campaign of The Hafler Trio's early research into sound and its effect upon the human psyche. It was the third in what now stands as the first of many untitled "triologies of three," standing as the final chapter to the series featuring Kill The King and Mastery of Money. Within the entire catalogue of the Hafler Trio, How To Reform Mankind (1994) represents one of the last records that Andrew McKenzie produced before drastically slowing down his activities in the middle and late '90s. In many ways, this album is also an exceptional culmination of the ideas that McKenzie propagated throughout the '80s, which reflect a considerably different perspective upon his work, his life, and the world in general. The early Hafler Trio albums revelled in the miscommunication, the recycling of information within new contexts, and a disorientation caused by the play between what is real and what might be real. In recent years, The Hafler Trio's idioms have suggested a revelation / obfuscation of truth in the grand traditions of ancient Gnosticism.
Psychoacoustics and the psychological impact of sound have both figured heavily into all of the Hafler Trio's work, and these areas of research are profoundly present on How To Reform Mankind. Subtle flutterings of shortwave data have been processed into rarified air; low volume, resonant frequencies colliding with the body for a chest-cavity massage; the clunky piano from McKenzie's Negentropy album returns as a post-serialist leitmotif; and desolate sonar plinks slam against metal walls to astounding effect. McKenzie's uncompromising drive for his art has made the Hafler Trio one of the greatest artistic endeavors of the last two decades; and How To Reform Mankind stands close to the top of his best recordings.
Aquarius Records

THE HAFLER TRIO —
ONE DOZEN ECOMOMICAL STORIES BY PETER GREENAWAY
and HOW TO REFORM MANKIND

Two recent works by one of the most cryptical groups around. Andrew McKenzie (H30's frontman) has twelve unpublished stories by the famous director and painter Greenaway. Recently the sound of the Hafler Trio changed from ambient tapestries to a more rudimentary form of sound collage with all sorts of short repetitive sounds. Here on track 2 this leads to dance music (but different from the Hafler Trio bootleg 12") and on track 6 to phase shifting theme (not unlike Steve Reich's 'Come Out'). There is also a slip, which is the track consisting of an answering phone message. 'How To...' is the third part in the trilogy 'Kill The King' and 'Mastery Of Money'. Again you'll find ambient pieces, along with more rhythmical pieces. In the third piece you'll find the same piano sounds as on the recently released 'Negentropy' LP (which was a collaboration with Adi Newton). Both CD's are not bad, but I have the feeling that the master looses his touch a bit... — let's hope I'm wrong. (FdW)

Vital, 39 jan 1995

ONE DOZEN ECOMOMICAL STORIES BY PETER GREENAWAY
HOW TO REFORM MANKIND

About the only vaguely commercial move The Hafler Trio have made in their 15 year career as obscure sound artists is to work with the texts of Peter Greenaway. A shared interest in mindgames and philosophy makes them natural collaborators. So combine as you will the Dada/alchemlcal noise melange of The Hafler Trio with the 12 amusing metafables in the accompanying booklet. A connection by way of example: in one story photo exerts a curse, and The Hafler Trio's Andrew McKenzie has long worked on the principle that audio photography (phonography) also carries power.
The Hafler Trio here extend their stylistic palette to include (excuse the crude categorisations) Steve Reichian phase experiments, Warp Records-style Electronica and Scanner voyeurism; domains not knowingly pilfered but arising naturally from the course of their previous work. In fact the range of approaches on display here make this release strangely accessible, and a valuable point of entry into the Trio's richly rewarding world.
The title of How To Reform Mankind, the final pan of a trilogy on Touch Records, is curiously close to the title of John Cage's collected diary entries, How To improve The World. Whereas Cage's writings were subtitled "(You will only make matters worse)", The Hafler Trio's package is adorned by a shoddily ripped out newspaper photo of a ventriloquist and his dummy. Plainly, neither have glib solutions or dogma to dish out. Indeed Cage said that he thought there was "Just the right amount" of suffering in the world, while Andrew McKenzie has asserted that "The world is perfect". Perhaps we can glean from their examples that any responsibility we have is towards ourselves, and that all else follows.
Like the previous parts of the trilogy, Kill The King and Mastery Of Money, How To .. works with longer time scales than the Greenaway collaboration. Although there are again several stylistic points of departure from the previous two pans it remains exquisite in its choice of material, subtle mixing (dub could reinvigorate itself if fed on a diet of this) and purposefully disorienting sense of timing. The largely unidentifiable and apparently unsynthetic nature of the source materials (often location/atmosphere recordings) produces a psychological effect that lies beyond the obviously narrative or manipulatlvely emotional. The results are hugely impressive: beautiful, frightening and sad.
Electroacoustic composers and synthetic Techno noodlers abound but as autodidact tape composers with a mission and a keen sense of the absurd, The Hafler Trio not only have no equals — there's hardly another soul to be seen on the pitch.

PHIL ENGLAND, The WIRE, Issue 133

WIR3O
(Touch # Tone 5 CD)

The Hafler Trio remix "The First Letter", an unreleased WIR track from1991. In fact, remix is not the right word, but there you go. WIR hadwritten "The First Letter" some time after their LP/CD of the same name hadbeen recorded, and the song went through several mutations before itresurfaced as part of a broadcast on Austrian radio. The group had alsodemoed the song at Mute's own studios and used it as part of the I Saw Youperformances — The Hafler Trio took these various versions, and usingsamples from Wire CDs from Pink Flag onwards, performed this curioussurgery. Close in spirit but beyond Plunderphonics...

"'The First Letter' by Wir, remixed and relocated by The Hafler Trio. Twolong tracks of hypnotic beats and mind altering sonics. An accessible andcompulsively mixed-up record with multi-purpose applications."

Head

Hljóðmynd
(DIE STADT CD)

After many years of sporadic hard to get releases, The Hafler Trio return with a full length CD. This has been many years in process, as it got the first catalogue number by Die Stadt (DS 01), whose recent 7" releases were already DS 26 and DS 27. The recordings featured are made late 1994 and are part, if I understand it correctly, of some art installation in Iceland. The Hafler Trio, on this occassion Andrew McKenzie and Erla Porarinsdottir, take off were the left us. A series of processed sounds, stretched — I assume in the good analogue ways — but it differs from for instance the seven 10" records. For a whole hour this seems to be the work. Sounds, processed and unrecognizable from their original source, wave back and forth in the mix. A certain amount of decay is added, like the same sound has been processed so often that a mere static remains. Now, the main question is: is this a great CD? Humm... altogether I am not sure. It's nice, but it's a long sit to fully concentrate on this. Another CD that was recentely released by The Hafler Trio, 'Hand Wave' (a super limited real CD, edition of 46 copies for subscribers to the 10" series), is a much more coherent ambient listening then this. So maybe I should plead for a normal release of 'Hand Wave'? Address: jschwarz@diestadtmusik.de

FdW — Vital, Issue 238

The Hafler Trio's Hljóðmynd was designed for a 1994 installation in Gerduberg, Iceland, with visual artist {Þórarinsdóttir}. Perhaps because of this extra-musical reference, this work is more episodic than other Hafler Trio albums. Although there is only one track and no individual listings, the piece has several silent spots that delineate the work into sections. Often within these sections, the piece proceeds by working with one sound for a minute or two, then with another, and so on. Many of the Hafler Trio's characteristic sounds are present in this work, such as drones and loops, often with strong overtones that obscure the basic pitches. These reappear periodically with enough variation each time to keep them from sounding like a refrain. The longest sections of the piece are these kinds of drones, one lasting around eight minutes about halfway through. Most of the episodes are much shorter. There are electronic stabs of white noise, undulating waves, sounds like pipe organ clusters, and even occasional melodic material, typically lasting no more than two or three minutes. The sounds themselves are more homogenous than on other Hafler Trio releases. For example, vocal samples, which are so much a part of the trilogy of "Kill the King", "Mastery of Money", and "How to Reform Mankind", as well as "Bang! An Open Letter", do not appear here at all, nor are there any obvious field recordings. Many of the episodes could have been generated on a pipe organ or similar keyboard instrument. Some of the photographs on the accompanying booklet indicate that the installation was multi-room, in which case the episodic nature of this piece could be explained by its translation from a visual environment to merely audio, as well as the overall homogeneity of the sounds. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

The Hafler Trio: Hljóðmynd

Cross-media collaboration has always been a central tenet of Hafler Trio production. In the mid-90s, Andrew McKenzie scored Masturbatorium for a performance piece by pornstar/artist Annie Sprinkle, forming the first instalment of a sex trilogy that has so far been followed by the brilliant FUCK. There are also more reflective projects such as One Dozen Ecomomical (sic) Stories By Peter Greenaway in which texts are "corrupted, manipulated, and accompanied by the Hafler Trio" in kind of cross-media remix. Hljóðmynd is yet another multimedia project, and the first Hafler Trio release in quite some time. It's also their first cd for the German Die Stadt label. It was produced in 1994 when McKenzie collaborated with icelandic artist Erla Þórarinsdóttir on an installation she produced in Reykjavik. The cd box is lavishly produced fetish object of embossed blue cloth with a series of installation photographs inside. I had some difficulty in deciphering the relationship between the aural and the visual — any clues in the accompanying text passed me by because i can't read icelandic. The beautiful installation photographs might refer to some alchemical process involving copper sulphate. They include a Carl Andre grid of ochre tiles scattered with more blue crystals, instituational architecture painted blue, and geometric objects and patterns that lend the whole project an air of ritualistic mystery.
Those familiar with the H3O's work will recognise the sparse orchestration (as in experimental classical music rather than the usual Ambient feelgood symphony). Indeed, Hljóðmynd seems quieter and more composed, even, than most of the H3O back catalogue. Even though it is programmed as a single hour-long work, it is effectively divided up into short pieces lasting a few minutes, each fading out before the next fades in. It moves through various contemplative moods, yet despite some extravagant soundbursts, it sustains an atmosphere with no radical changes in direction or sensibility. As with many H3O releases, the relationship between print and sound is elliptical — I always come away feeling that an essential piece of the puzzle is missing.
On works like Intoutof, How To Reform Mankind or Peter Greenaway, image, text and sound work to create tensions that throw each other into relief and make the material all the more engaging. However, Hljóðmynd on cd should not be confused with the 1994 installation itself. Taken on its own, the photographs, it steers towards the metaphysical modernist fantasies made explicit by the sci-fi aesthetics of 2001. Indeed, both Þórarinsdóttir and McKenzie use the standard tropes of sci-fi cinema but, while Kubrick and Tarkovsky created paranoiac dystopias by ironising those tropes, Hljóðmynd fails to move beyond them and ends up somewhere between mystical minimalism and the edge-of-your-seat susupense of Aliens 3.

Ben Borthwick, The Wire October 2000 Issue 200

Resurrection: Live in Sweden
Sometime in the 1960s, John Cage envisioned making a music performance out of cooking, and even performed on more than one occasion by drinking a glass of water with a contact microphone attached to his neck. Possibly in the same spirit, five Scandinavian {\avant-garde} performers played "Resurrection" live on Swedish National Radio, a piece for "two actors, six cookers, crockery, six baths, live mixing via two PA systems (one stereo, one six-way surround), slides and audience." The photograph on the accompanying poster shows the two actors with the pots on the stoves, and many of the sounds on the piece can be attributed to using the crockery as percussion. The piece alternates between tranquil drone sections and various percussives, from a repeated drum rhythm that returns periodically to different scraping sounds. The baths don't play much of an audible role, although there is a section of swirling water about halfway through. Like any recording of a theater piece, a great deal is lost in the translation to a simple recording, especially given that the live performance included six-way surround sound. But the unifying rhythmic and drone elements provide an alternate compensation, and it is interesting to hear what these performers, who normally work only with electronic compositions, do with a live audience. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

Masturbatorium was the soundtrack for a performance art/goddess ritual by Annie Sprinkle, and between the title and its provenance, one naturally tends to view the piece in the context of a sexual act. The piece itself begins quietly enough, with a repeated piano figure over which various other drones, resonant frequencies of the Earth, and repeated electronic figures are layered. In the performance, this section was a time of preparation and evocation. After about seven minutes, this repeated figure gives way to a quiet, low, crunchy rumble, to which a short vocal sample is added after a few minutes. Almost all of the sounds in the second section are constructed from Sprinkle's sexual activity. The last four minutes are comprised of a tantric techno rhythm from the Anti Group, with vocal samples from Sprinkle having her first "Breath Orgasm," increasing in speed and pitch, suddenly stopping just before the close to leave quiet, breathy drones to fade out. This release is the first part of a projected trilogy based on sexual energy, and is intended as a practical and functional work which will duplicate the energies of the performance ritual outside the performance space. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

Fuck is the second part of a projected trilogy that begins with Masturbatorium, and for which the third part has not been released as of early 2001. While Masturbatorium used sounds generated by performance artist Annie Sprinkle in a sonic investigation of female sexuality, Fuck concentrates on male sexual energies, using sounds leading to the brink of male orgasm from Andrew McKenzie, in addition to various atmospheric frequencies and field recordings. As with the trilogy's first part, the liner notes go into some detail about the sonic origins and the overall purpose of the piece, its specific practical intents, and its relationship to investigations into sexual energy. Unusually, McKenzie directs that the recording be played at maximum volume, and that the CD player be in strict accordance with left and right channel connections. With the correct playback configuration, the ominous low drone opening shakes the room, and when the various fast rhythmic layers are added in, the piece takes on an overwhelming aura seldom found in other Hafler Trio releases. A looped bass vocal alternates between the two channels in the second track, exercising the separation McKenzie mentions. Given the sexual intent of the piece, one might suppose that it would start slowly and build, but in fact the opposite is the case. The beginning is the loudest, densest, and fastest, with an overall tranquility and lightening as the piece progresses. Its unity of purpose makes it one of the better Hafler Trio releases, although the cover art and subject matter make it for mature listeners only. ~ Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

The Hafler Trio — FUCK
The duality of The Hafler Trio — to confound and to entertain, well that's one theory anyway. This is Andrew McKenzie giving himself digital head. Fuck starts off with some frantic fumbling beneath the sheets with a beat(ing off on himself) that owes more to the rhythms of Clock DVA than The Hafler Trio's previous work. All voices, hearbeat, breath and so on that you have "coming" at your ears, emanate from A.M. McKenzie — the hairy neophyte himself. Maximum self stimulation to the point of (but not beyond) orgasm. Palpitations of male sexual energy are "thrust" at you, along with the sound of radiation and universe. But not "the" as they are quick to point out. Low frequency vibrations a go-go will no doubt get to your genitalia, but the again so will a vibrator (and it's cheaper). Fuck has been constructed as a working "tool", at once serving as an aid to your experiments and exploring taboo's surrounding male sexuality in both homo and heterosexual aspects. The lengthy liners notes should act as an informed guide but they lack in-depth reference sources (out with The Hafler Trio back catalogue). The addition of these would I'm sure help dispel talk of pretentious self-aggrandisement. I find the sounds on this disc interesting but oddly irritating. An old Zen proverb says, "Oo-er misses. Don't. Mmm. How was it for you?!"

Robert H. King

The Hafler Trio — FUCK

1. Absence or presence (rate: 3)
There are two groups of people that will buy this album: those who have every disc HT have ever thought about putting out and those who don't have any HT release at all and are curious about the album's content — I guess it's safe to say that the name of this album and the cover artwork alone will attract a lot of music fans. One of the shortest HT studio ventures so far, originally issued in 1992 on the Touch label as the second part of a trilogy and then re-issued in 1997 for its US release, "The F album" collects two experimental pieces which have a running time of 15 minutes each. The booklet's extensive lines notes tell us about the origin of the music, the involved persons, and the intentions of these two tracks: As HT mastermind A. M. McKenzie explains, the overall purpose of the disc was to bring the listener into a state of concentration, which is best achieved by listening to this disc at maximum volume and in strict accordance with left and right channel connections. That probably means that one listen to this record on headphones in a darkened room will be the best way to demonstrate this project's strength, separating it from many other ambient or "electronic listening" album which are primarily designed for relaxation and dissipation. There's also a lot of insight into the music itself and the way the various sonic elements and sounds were arranged, which in itself once again confirms that HT's idea of bringing together non-musical elements, several treated vocal samples, electronic sounds, and great production skills marks the raison d'etre of avant-garde music. Whether that level of artistic integrity is enough for an engaging listening session is certainly another matter altogether — and there are a few things which prevent "The F album" from being numbered along the best ambient discs of the '90s. "Part 1" (there are no track titles, of course!) starts things off quite promisingly with menacing, processed guitar feedback which immediately reminded me of Main's output. Then, the piece suddenly evolves into a fascinating sonic landscape, consisting of various layers of electronics which are combined with a muted but insistent bass drum and several bodily noises provided by McKenzie. Although HT probably attempt to include a few too many ideas, the hyperactive nature of the music makes clear that this is pretty much the opposite of Maurice Ravel's famous erotic composition "Bolero"! About six minutes in, some of the sonic elements fade away and