This CD accompanied the book "Psychic TV : A Coumprehensive Collection Of Lyrics 1981-90" by Vittore Baroni.
Both tracks were recorded in Amsterdam (September 1990) by Genesis P-Orridge with The Hafler Trio, specially for this project. The only sound source that was used is the voice of G.P-Orridge. The two tracks were written by G.P-Orridge.
"Alaura / Slave Priest" was released by Stampa Alternativa in 1990.
Tracks 1 and 2 originally released as L.A.Y.L.A.H. (LAY 13) in March 1985.
Also includes previously unreleased material.
Track 4 has the note : "Originally recorded in 1954, modified in 1975."
Track 8 has the note : "Originally bootlegged in Germany in 1982."
"Walk Gently Through The Gates Of Joy" was released by The Grey Area in 1994.
From Allmusic.com : "Originally issued as a set of two vinyl EPs, Seven Hours Sleep is very similar in spirit to other early Hafler Trio recordings, such as Bang!. Chris Watson and Edward Moolenbeek are still part of the group, and the original release had the assistance of ROBOL Sound Recordings. Watson brings a strong interest in field recordings to the studio, and there are snippets of radio broadcasts, movie music, dog barks, laughter, stadium cheers, creaking doors, and many other recognizable sounds scattered throughout. Moolenbeek's presence and the concomitant affiliation with ROBOL (whether or not either or both of these entities are fictional) signals an overt dealing with perceptual issues, which manifests itself through rapid cuts from one type of material to another as well as the use of found sounds. Of the seven tracks, only "Four Hours" and "Seven Hours" have recognizable identities. "Four Hours" comprises for the most part a single loud, high-pitched drone that increases in intensity and pitch during the course of the piece. "Seven Hours" is also a drone piece, with foghorns and wind and water sounds playing a predominant role before a romantic interlude to close the album. Much of the remaining material is a jumbled collage -- disorienting, disconnected, and dreamlike -- but the album's progression from the early disorientation to the closing drones succeeds in putting the listener in another state, making this one of the Hafler Trio's more effective collections."
"Seven Hours Sleep" was released by L.A.Y.L.A.H. Antirecords in 1985, then re-released by The Grey Area in 1994.
From Allmusic.com : "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."
"Play The Hafler Trio" was released by Anckarström in 1991, then re-released by Staalplaat in 1991.
From the liner notes : "This recording utilises elements from various pieces, most being initiated with this project in mind, amongst which are: Psychological Astronomy - Psychophysicist (Newton, McKenzie), The Threat That Cannot Be Obeyed - The Hafler Trio (McKenzie, Karkowski), SPIRICOM - The Hafler Trio (McKenzie, Karkowski), Tesselation - The Hafler Trio (McKenzie, Karkowski), A Luna Kanula - Asburd (McKenzie, Ponton), I Remain, Yours... - The Hafler Trio (McKenzie, Karkowski), Tantric Resonance - The Anti Group (Newton, Baker, Dennis), The Ames Room - The Hafler Trio (McKenzie), Imsak - The Hafler Trio (McKenzie). Every other sound was constructed especially for this Goddess Ritual accompaniment."
"Masturbatorium" was released by Touch Records in 1991.
From Allmusic.com : "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."
From Allmusic.com : "In the early '80s, the Hafler Trio organized a series of lectures in Holland as a forum for a more public presentation of their ideas and work in audio and video. Prior to this time, the only released works were Bang! An Open Letter, Seven Hours Sleep, and the 12" single "Alternation, Perception and Resistance" (reissued on Walk Gently Through the Gates of Joy). The Netherlands Lectures presented a complex and larger scale series of experiments with voice (including live readings, taped voices, and speech conveyed by telephone), backing tapes, and visual information. The success of the lectures led to the release of an edited version for audio only that was released as Three Ways of Saying Two. That LP was edited into a single track for representation here. Bounded by a circus calliope, the track is a long lecture about the work of Robert Spridgeon in two distinct voices. The first lecture, taking the first half hour, deals with Spridgeon's work in communication and its relation to religious phenomena. The second, delivered by the same voice identified on Bang! as Edward Moolenbeck, presents Spridgeon's work in the context of scientific experiments and Cold War paranoia. Behind the voices are combinations of drones, loops, and electronic noise, with occasional short instrumental interludes. "The Butcher's Block" is a collage of extracts from Hafler Trio installations and performances from the late '80s, and ranges from live installation recordings of drones and environmental noise to processed romantic violin and piano recordings, and even a ritualistic percussion piece. Because of the large amount of spoken word on this album, its appeal is more limited than other Hafler Trio releases, but followers of the group may be interested in the relations to Spridgeon's work and the group's ideas about communication generally."
"Four Ways of Saying Five" was released by The Grey Area in 1993.
From Allmusic.com : "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."
"Bang! An Open Letter" was released by Doublevision in 1984, then re-released by The Grey Area in 1994.
From Allmusic.com : "All That Rises is a reissue of two EPs that were originally released in late 1986 on Touch, The Sea Org (tracks one through three) and Brain Song (tracks five through nine), with additional tracks that were previously unreleased. The group's interest in perception and the effects of sound is still very much in the foreground here. The original cover of Brain Song still includes Edward Moolenbeek as a member of the group, and interviews from the period still refer to Spridgeon as inspiration. Almost all of this collection contains the Hafler Trio's particular take on layered drones, where occasionally recognizable sounds (especially voices) appear buried in the mix, and where a sound will suddenly appear or disappear, in one channel or in both. Sometimes the drones will show their origins to be some kind of field recordings as the sounds thin out. There are also many perceptual blurs, such as on "Myriologue #3," where the sounds of seagulls morph into creaking hinges. The absence of a direct narrative makes this slightly easier listening than their earliest work, such as Bang!, but there are enough sudden changes to keep the listener on edge and the album from lapsing into easy ambience."
"All That Rises Must Converge" was released by The Grey Area in 1993.
Tracklisting :
1. Zbigniew Karkowski - Wrench
2. Phauss - Nothing But The Truth / We'll Be Married In The Morning
3. John Duncan / Zbigniew Karkowski - Chapel Perilous
4. John Duncan - Kick
5. Guds Söner - Betaeckning
6. The Hafler Trio - Bread & Shit
"Anckarström Live" was released by Staalplaat in 1993.
From Allmusic.com : "Formed in Sheffield, England, in 1980 by Cabaret Voltaire alum Chris Watson and Andrew McKenzie, the Hafler Trio were never a three-piece in any actual sense -- in fact, the third member originally credited to the lineup, one Dr. Edward Moolenbeek, was (according to an interview with McKenzie in the March/April 1991 issue of Option magazine) reportedly an expert in psycho-acoustic research who edited the journal Science Review during the 1930s. Much of the Hafler Trio's mystique stems from the deliberate misinformation the group consistently set forth -- although their records regularly came packaged with deluxe graphs, diagrams, and essays detailing the purported effects of sound on the listener, the scientific authenticity of their "findings" is debatable; for example, their 1984 debut, Bang! An Open Letter, claims to be based on the studies of an acoustic researcher named Robert Spridgeon, complete with bibliography. Spridgeon later proved to be a complete fabrication, however, and over the course of subsequent efforts, including 1985's Alternation, Perception and Resistance -- A Comprehension Exercise EP, 1986's Three Ways of Saying Two -- The Netherlands Lectures, and Dislocation, the Hafler Trio continued baffling audiences with a deluge of propaganda, clouding perceptions to increase the visceral impact of their music."
"Whistling About Chickens" was released by Fire Inc. in 2003.
From Discogs.com : "This is a unique setup - Psychic TV (I suspect GPO largely, but who knows? This was a period of experimentation for PTV as well as the perpetual one maintained by H3O) and McKenzie getting together for a project that, in the end, didn't have much to do with either of them? Interesting... I bought this originally with the cutout version of the Dreammachine and put it on an old Garrard turntable with lights shining through it. The effect was pretty much as advertised, but I still have a hard time putting it through my head that there was any musical coalescence between the two artists. Conceptual, maybe... Nevertheless, this stands as a milestone for H3O, if not for PTV. I can't see the influence of the latter, but who can say? If you get a chance to acquire this, jump on it! It's really rare, and evocative."
"Brion Gysin's Dreamachine" was released by KK Records in 1989.
From Allmusic.com : "During the period from 1989 through 1993, filmmaker and painter Peter Greenaway and Hafler Trio's Andrew McKenzie collaborated on this work, which consists of 12 of Greenaway's short texts, "corrupted, manipulated, and accompanied" by the Hafler Trio. The CD comes with a booklet containing all 12 stories with diagrams for tying knots on the opposite pages. Most of the music is very similar to other Hafler Trio albums, with drones, crackles, and loops featured most prominently. There are fewer field recordings than on other albums, with only tracks three and ten containing a few bird calls. Track two is a techno dance track, with spooky altered vocals hovering in the background. Tracks five and 12 are exclusively prerecorded material, an old scratchy guitar recording on five and a pop song from the 1950s on 12. The sixth track is very similar to Steve Reich's phase-shifting tape works, such as "Come Out" or "It's Gonna Rain."
"One Dozen Economical Stories By Peter Greenaway" was released by Sub Rosa in 1994.
From Allmusic.com : "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."
"Mastery Of Money" was released by Touch Records in 1992.
From Allmusic.com : "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."
From Discogs.com : "The Hafler Trio as it now exists is an organisation dedicated to the dissemination of information, principally in the recorded medium, but neccessarily involved in the intersections between the related disciplines and the furtherance of their effectiveness to provide an antidote to the tendencies prevalent in their use at the present time.
The releases of The Hafler Trio are primarily concerned with research and presentation of the findings that result, and as such are a coninually growing and evolving library - a source of stimulation to action - in direct opposition to the lethargic obsession with escapism provided by the means of entertainment currently available.
The Hafler Trio are interested in three essentials only; the body, the mind, and the spirit. Everything else follows directly from these points and is contained within them. In short, The Hafler Trio facilitates interaction in an organic manner that is not directly coerced, but unless effort on the part of the recipient is engaged, the circle cannot be completed.
Although The Hafler Trio was originally founded by Andrew McKenzie and Christopher Watson, the only member currently remaining is McKenzie. A third founding member, the scientist Dr. Edward Moolenbeck, turned out to be a fiction created by the other two."
