The Hafler Trio is Andrew M. McKenzie (from Newcastle, England — currently residing in Tallinn, Estonia) working in the field of psychoacoustics and sonic research. Since 1982, The Hafler Trio has produced a prolific body of work involving art, science, sound, religion, comedy and philosophy — emphasizing a dynamic balance and interplay of 'body', 'mind' and 'spirit' over any one of these. McKenzie has previously worked with members of Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, Nurse With Wound, Psychic TV, Whitehouse and Zoviet France. Andrew has also collaborated with performance artists John Duncan and Annie Sprinkle, ex-Fluxus artist Willem De Ridder, artist/designer Neville Brody, and sound/poetry artist Z'EV. Recently, The Hafler Trio are concerned with the ramifications of technology and the creation of the most extreme, all inclusive experience as possible, that 'resonates' over a period of time lasting much longer than just the physical time it takes to apprehend it, and affects and engages all levels of being.

Baraka[H] of Troum: «I admire everyone who is able to express his primal (true) creativity (independent from commercialism, ideology, pure narcissism), I see it as a very positive force, so that's too many people to mention. One person I really admire a lot for his music & art is Andrew McKenzie. What he does is really beyond everyone else, I think he's a genius.»

Autechre: «We really like Hafler stuff, I think it's fantastic. It's got a rare humour. I think he's another one where people think that it's godlike but he's actually just having a laugh really. We have long extended dialogues with Andrew, he's really smart.»

Björk: «When he [Andrew McKenzie] came he ignited a spark in Stillupsteypa and Curver and Reptilicus and all those artists that were coming up then. »

Hilmar Jensson: «I think he [Andrew McKenzie] just brought in so much knowledge and so much enthusiasm into a [icelandic] scene that was quite fragile in its baby steps. These bands that were starting out, they didn't have the access to all this music at the time. There weren't stores like this one where we sit right now. It wasn't as easy to go on the internet and buy whatever you needed. And he had a lot of music; he had done a tremendous lot of recordings. And he had so much knowledge of how to do things and what the history of electronic music was. I think he basically inspired people so much. »

More than 20 years of activity in a multiplicity of realms both 'real' and 'imaginary' have both clarified and obscured many of the surfaces that have been externally applied to the work emanating from under that names' umbrella. What can be said with a small degree of certainty is that the aim progresses in its capacity to apprehend to a state where it need not actually manifest through the expedient facility of a signifier.

Without a doubt, what can be ascertained from looking at what it is that The Hafler Trio have supposedly 'done', is that what is completed by that act is something that was intentional; even if these factors do not serve as a platform for automatic consumption of the selfs' immediate impressions as food for secondary entities which survive essentially by proxy. The reciprocal is very active.

An extensive collection of Hafler Trio detritus and assorted opportunities for the consumption of such impressions as well as the forming of opinions divorced from 'actuality' are accessible, so to speak, and not without a recognition of the doubtfulness of their efficacy, at brainwashed.com/h3o

This is an attempt to communicate something that I wish had successfully been, but regrettably seems not to.

it concerns the attitude and place of the observation and attention of an audience and how the entity known as The Hafler Trio interacts with that.

what The Hafler Trio does is not for a mass audience by design or intention, nor could it ever have that function. most of the laws that works produced to function in such domains do not apply to that of the h3o. this is not an accident, this is an intentional choice. for many reasons, some of which will be outlined here, certain other choices and decisions have followed from that original point, and require certain conditions to be fulfilled if their greater purpose on several levels is to be fulfilled.

I am not interested in the vampiric relationship currently popular in many fields of human interaction; quite the reverse. it is not an oversimplification to say that one of the 'aims' of the entire project is to devise many means to construct situations where that vampiric relationship can be dissolved, however temporarily. to do this requires the establishment of certain agreements between those participating in the intended relationship, in order that the potential fruits in the form of possibilities for development become actualised. part of the reason for writing this text is to now make very explicit that material by The Hafler Trio, if one wishes to work with it, demands at least partial acceptance of the terms of such an agreement.

I will deal with the current situation as regards public performance.

the events which we set up take many months of very concentrated effort and preparation, largely the work of several people in several countries. these are not events where someone turns up and does an "act" and then moves on to the next town to do the same "act" again. 90% of the time, these are totally non-repeatable actions designed to use the location, opportunities and characteristics of the place in question, as well as the resources (including people) associated with it. there are always several layers of underlying meaning and intent, and a simple face-reading is insufficient to obtain the possible content or its ramifications.

documentation can be a very useful tool in coming to at least a partial understanding of many things. reproduction can serve as an entry point to the "real" 'thing'. however, in the context of a delicately balanced situation involving an unfixed and volatile number of people with inestimable expectations, plus the dynamics of the other factors as mentioned previously, intrusion into the framework that has been constructed, by means of deflection of attention caused by unwanted recording, be it in the form of sound or vison, effectively destroys that framework of relationships, and removes the possibility of the successful outcome of the project as it was intended.

to make this more clear, perhaps: if an audience member makes a recording of a Hafler Trio event, by means of video, photograph, or audio, they are destroying the possibility of the attention that is required on the part of all the audience members. as part of some of the actions, authorised personnel make recordings: however, as should be by now very obvious, those recordings will never be released 'as is'; rather, they will be worked upon so that the essential qualities of the original intent are a) preserved as far as possible notwithstanding the limitations and differences of the mediums, and b) that they serve to 'finalise' and even take further the original project. those people are to all intents and purposes, trusted and acknowledged members of The Hafler Trio for that period.

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I therefore ask this: if the reader wishes to participate in a public Hafler Trio event, please understand quite clearly the following — I request that you do not bring any recording equipment of any kind, and that you understand that if such equipment is seen being used, it will be confiscated for the duration of the event, you will be escorted to the exit, and the media used in the unauthorised recording will be confiscated permanently. this is an EXPLICIT agreement that you are being asked to enter into. if you are NOT prepared to abide by this agreement, which will be given to you to read before you enter the event, please, DO NOT ENTER. entertainment is a fine vehicle for many things of great value. this is NOT on offer here.

it is my EXPRESS wish that you do not do so, on the grounds that it destroys the work of many for the selfish ignorant greed of a so-called individual exercising what he or she erroneously regards as their "rights", and b) helps to foster that attitude in others, which is perhaps an even greater offense against efforts to work in a way which allows possibilities for growth and 'work', rather than subtract from them.

secondly, 'copies' of Hafler Trio projects in the audio domain:

releases by The Hafler Trio, as should be blindingly obvious to anyone even vaguely familiar with even a fraction of them, and not rackable with conventional commercial releases, considered from either the point of intent or of packaging. the construction of these takes an enormous amount of work, preparation, planning, investment in terms of resources (on many, many levels) by many people, commitments to bring such an item to the marketplace which will result in little or no financial gain, and a trust in the possibility that the recipient will at least try to approach the project with at least some of the attention that was vested in its construction. part of the construction is the intimate set of balances and contexts for the parts with the whole. for h3o material, this relationship is almost certainly more finely tuned than that of other people working within a roughly comparable set of circumstances today. that is not to imply superiority, it is to state clearly that it is different.

separating those elements by copying parts of the material to different formats destroys what is being done. please read and consider this again. by copying my work into other mediums (more on this in a minute) you are DESTROYING that which you would appear, by the act of purchasing one of my works, to be interested in. that is, you are decreasing the possibility that such things will continue to be produced. you are polluting waters you will not be able to drink from again.

audio components of all the releases are worked on meticulously. more than quarter of a century of personal experience is involved, as well as that of many years on the part of collaborators and mastering engineers that are used because of an understanding of areas APART and EXTRA from the prodigious technical skills they have. taking the audio components and reducing them by compression to other formats is first and foremost an unacceptable degradation of the work in question. not only is the quality of the experience in measurable terms such as frequencies present, spectral characteristics and so on, diminished and irrevocably altered, but the construction of a 'place' where 'something' can happen as was intended is denied. there is no worth in this in any way whatsoever. it is comparable to those who have opinions about world events based on what they read in the newspaper.

the audio components of a release 'act' on the visual material present, and the action is reciprocal in the fact that the visual material is not an 'accompaniment' to the aural, but is part of the meaning as a whole. one CANNOT be fully entered into without reference and study of the other (by 'visual', it is here understood that 'visual' includes the text provided or contained).

by 'sharing' fragments of h3o material with others through computer networks and the like, you are denying yourself the possibility of something that can never be obtained through such reduction of effort to mere data, and you are ruining the chances of such possibilities for others. this is not a "victim-less crime".

I ask you, the reader of this text, to understand that it is my express wish that you do not copy my work to any other medium, and that you understand that if you do, you are not seeing the intent of the work, as by doing so, you are removing the possibility of the attention needed to 'get' it. you may then, just as well, NOT buy my work. you are wasting your money.

I am not totally ignorant: I am aware that many people feel passionately the opposite way about their 'rights' to do whatever they like with anything they buy, and that in many cases what I have written here will only be interpreted as carte blanche to redouble their efforts, much as when a child is told not to do something, they scream and protest about "fairness" and then attempt to prove that they can do it whatever they are told. I am also aware that I will also not be able to eradicate ignorance — not of these matters, nor of any others. the most I can do is try to eradicate as much of it as I can in myself.

but I hope that with this text I can truly ask that if you are even slightly interested in what The Hafler Trio does or could do in the future, that you refect and consider externally what I have written and asked, and see that it is not done from a position of possessiveness, but from one of allowing the maximisation of what limited possibilities are available at this time in order to do and to be that which it is necessary to do and be.

lastly, you are of course 'free' to ignore all of this, or dimiss it in any way you 'see' fit, rather than actually dealing with some of the rather 'difficult' things outlined above. this, I would pertinently suggest, is your loss, and this saddens me greatly. and only you have the means to perceive what it is that I am saying, to you. I honestly hope you can hear. I wish it with all my being.

one can work within any organisation: it does not matter whether you personally like or dislike the people involved, or what they say or do. but the willingness to put this aside and work in something that is larger than just the automatic wants of an individual is the only way to begin the possibility of seeing clearly what has to be done. The Hafler Trio and what it does is a small vehicle that can be used as a framework for work of this kind. please allow it to be able to continue.

as ever, my thanks for your attention.

A.M.Mckenzie
Reykjavík

saturday 14th august 2004
+
mercredi Phalle 131
St Mnester, confesseur
+
the three faces

I will approve of any review of my work where the reviewer has:

a) considered the intent of the release
b) has it succeed in those aims
c) sought personal contact of anything is unclear to them

A.M.Mckenzie
Tallinn

thursday 29th june 2006