H.P. LOVECRAFT Dreams In The Witch House: The Complete Philips Recordings (Rev-Ola) cd 14.98

H>OST Cin (V/VM Test Records) cd 14.98
First V/VM Test release that isn't a completely moronic conceptual art piece of shit. H>OST is the work of Polish artist Jacek Toszek. Cold and beautiful sonic landscapes much like those found in his native land, Toszek captures and embraces the frigidity inherent in electro-acoustic music and exploits it in the context of lifeless electronica.

HAACK, BRUCE Electric Lucifer Book 2 (Normal / Q.D.K.) cd 14.98
This is the previously unreleased 1979 sequel to Bruce Haack's 1970 "Electric Lucifer" LP, perhaps the most awesomely bizarre psychedelic pre-Kraftwerk electronica album ever to be released on a major label (Columbia) or elsewhere. The robotic voices and mechanical rhythms that made the first "Electric Lucifer" such a cult kitsch classic are still present on Book II, although it's perhaps more poppy and goofy and less disturbingly weird than its predecessor. Aside from that one (not-too-successful) major label release, Haack's career from the '60s through the early '80s focused on self-released electronic children's records, which while perhaps amusing (and of interest for his innovative home-built synths), of course don't come close to the trippy electro-rock and serious religious themes of the Electric Lucifer concept. With only portions of the original available on cd via the Bruce Haack "Hush Little Robot" collection, we can only hope that someday it will see a full cd reissue!! In the meantime, Book II is a treat for Haack fans.
RealAudio clip: "Mean Old Devil"
RealAudio clip: "Stand Up Lazaras"

HAACK, BRUCE Hush Little Robot (Q.D.K.) cd 16.98
Working with Raymond Scott, Bruce Haack developed his own very bizarre, though very distinct brand of electronic composition using self-built machines. These recordings, from between 1969 and 1970, are simple songs ostensibly for children (includes a strange version of "This Old Man") in the tradition of Raymond Scott. But this is no bliss for babies--this is analogue, vocoder, acid weirdness. Several of the tracks are pulled from his legendary album The Electric Lucifer, an electronic opera of the battle between Heaven and Hell. So don't buy this for your children, buy it for your next trip.

HAACK, BRUCE Hush Little Robot (Q.D.K.) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Working with Raymond Scott, Bruce Haack developed his own very bizarre, though very distinct brand of electronic composition using self-built machines. These recordings, from between 1969 and 1970, are simple songs ostensibly for children (includes a strange version of "This Old Man") in the tradition of Raymond Scott. But this is no bliss for babies--this is analogue, vocoder, acid weirdness. Several of the tracks are pulled from his legendary album The Electric Lucifer, an electronic opera of the battle between Heaven and Hell. So don't buy this for your children, buy it for your next trip.

HAACK, BRUCE The Electric Lucifer (The Omni Recording Corporation) cd 21.00
Can you imagine if "Music To Moog By" maestro Gershon Kingsley had dropped acid, joined a commune, got religion, and jammed with the Silver Apples and Lothar And The Hand People? That might approximate what the unique, wondrous psych-pop "Mooglove" of 1970's The Electric Lucifer sounds like!
YES!!! It's about time. We've always wanted this album to come out on cd. This HAD to be our Record Of The Week. Heck, years and years ago, Allan (long before he worked at Aquarius) became a bit obsessed with this record. He'd found a beat-up old LP of it at a yard sale, bought it mainly 'cause of the title and the freaky colorful cover graphics, and then was blown away by the weird music within. It's what we've described as being "perhaps the most awesomely bizarre psychedelic pre-Kraftwerk electronica album ever to be released on a major label (Columbia) or elsewhere." Allan actually went so far as to try to track down Bruce Haack for an interview, but without any luck (turns out Haack had already passed away back in 1988, a couple years before Allan discovered the record). And Allan's not the only one here at AQ to have a longtime soft spot for this record... so we're all so happy that it's finally, FINALLY been given the cd reissue treatment. It's absurd, really, that this wasn't reissued sooner. The legend of eccentric electronica pioneer Bruce Haack has only grown in recent years. There's been several compilations of his work (Hush Little Robot was the best, since it featured a couple tantalizing cuts from this album), expensive imported Japanese reissues of several of his Moog music albums for kids, a posthumous Electric Lucifer sequel from the vaults, and even a documentary released on DVD, entitled Haack - The King Of Techno! But Haack's crowning glory, his masterpiece The Electric Lucifer, wasn't available at all. Until now. And The Omni Recording Corporation (a label new to us) have done it right, even down to the very welcome notion of including a 5-minute track of silence to separate the 13 tracks of the album proper from the over thirty minutes of additional bonus material that they've added on -- which consists of a 1970 Canadian radio interview with Haack on the subject of Electric Lucifer and an alternate take of "Electric To Me Turn". The packaging is top notch as well, reproducing the amazing artwork and Haack's trippy sleevenotes from the original LP (wherein he discusses his concept of "Powerlove"), plus cramming tons of additional stuff into the thick cd booklet. There's loving liner notes by several of Haack's friends and colleagues and lots of vintage photos and graphics. Nicely done.
How can we explain the utter charm of this album? Well it's about as psychedelic as you can get, a concept album that's futuristic and Biblically ancient at the same time. Haack used an electronic "computer voice" (long before it was cliche) that he named FARAD, as well as regular human vocals, to convey deep Age of Aquarius astrological/philosophical concepts, sometimes in the form of sinister liturgies, at others like playful rhyming lullabies. These Moogy, moody and groovy compositions feature churchy organ sounds, bleeps and bloops, and rhythmic percolations that wouldn't sound out of place in the Star Wars cantina. There's lugubrious droney passages, mechanical beats, switched-on classical flourishes, and musique concrete style sound collage. Very weird *and* oh-so-catchy. It's definitely every bit as wonderful and essential as the Silver Apples albums, which we know so many AQ patrons love dearly. Again, we're so happy this has been reissued. Highest recommendation. Listen to the love angel, people!
MPEG Stream: "Electric To Me Turn"
MPEG Stream: "National Anthem To The Moon"
MPEG Stream: "Program Me "
MPEG Stream: "Word Game"

HAACK, BRUCE The Electric Lucifer (Columbia) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Vinyl only reissue of this computerized classic.

HAACK, BRUCE The Electronic Record For Children (Dimension 5 / King) cd 26.00
There was a time not too long ago when Bruce Haack was simply an anomalous footnote in the history of electronic music. But thanks to the rise of (for the lack of a more specific term) experimental music and the good folks making it, the gospel was spread and steps were taken to lift Haack's dedicated life's work out of the doomed classification of 'incredibly strange music'. In the late '90s, a vinyl reissue of Haack's legendary Electric Lucifer album appeared. Then in 1999, the QDK and Emperor Norton labels issued separate compilations of tracks selected from Haack's massive oeuvre: Hush Little Robot and Listen Compute Rock Home, respectively. These compilations featured a huge chunk of material originally released on Haack's own Dimension 5 imprint (with Listen Compute Rock Home being tagged as a D5 'best-of'), and set off a new generation of record geeks and purveyors of oddly adventurous sounds on the lookout for the original small press LPs.
Introduced in 1963, Dimension 5 was a project created by Haack to reach children, as he believed that music could be a powerfully communicative, and ultimately educational, tool. Along with a host of guest musicians and educators (most notably Miss Esther Nelson), D5 set out to create inspiring and imaginative recordings -- both sonically and narratively -- for children of all ages. Having issued eleven LPs over a span of thirteen years, Dimension 5 is certainly a musical phenomenon worth investigating itself, in addition to the other works of Bruce Haack. Thanks to the sound preservationists at King Record Company over in Japan, we now have access to cd versions of five of the LPs, most of which are unobtainable to many of us due to the high demand and deep pockets of many an eBayer. And with the imminent release of the documentary Haack: The King Of Techno (!), these reissues couldn't be more timely. However, they're expensive, and so we thought maybe it would be best to take 'em one at a time...starting with 1969's The Electronic Record For Children, as it might be the best of the bunch.
This album is credited to Bruce Haack, but also prominently features Miss Nelson. Like the title implies, there is an emphasis on the use of electronics, but the narrative certainly doesn't take a back seat here. There are songs that are indirectly of an educational nature: "First Lady" is a skit in the style of a television game show in which a young girl lists off the names of the US presidents in chronological order, set to a robotic rhythm. Simple enough, but when the host asks the girl to recite the names in reverse order, Haack flips the tape backward, splices and cranks it -- a total mindfuck for kids! Other 'lessons' teach us about rhythmics ("Clapping With Katy"), the compositional use of call and response ("Echo") and the life and daily routines of arachnids ("Spiders"). Inspired by the classes that Miss Nelson and Bruce once taught is the activity song "Dance", a Raymond Scott-fueled rollercoaster ride with wacked out helium vocals. But what stands out most for me on this recording are the songs of an abstract nature. "Mara's Mood" tells the story of 'a boy who tried to grasp the moon' over a loop of fuzzed out psychedelic guitar and synth. "Upside Down" could easily be mistaken for late sixties era British psychedelia a la Twink or Floyd. Quintron fans just might toss out their Quintron records when they hear the completely insane organ and rhythm box track credited, incredibly, to the Planet Of Singing Mice's Greek Cathedral Childrens' Mouse Choir, "Saint Basil". Definitely one of the better of the Dimension 5 releases, though there's something for everyone throughout all of their wondrous recordings!
MPEG Stream: "Upside Down"
MPEG Stream: "Saint Basil"
MPEG Stream: "Mara's Moon"

HAARE Chemical Witchcraft (Kult Of Nihilow) lp 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We listed the 7" by these guys ages ago, and in that review coined the term DRONOISE for whatever it is that Haare do. A roiling black mass of distorted dark ambient, and slow motion abstract free-doom, that record went out of print in no time (it was limited to 270 copies after all) and we've been waiting patiently for more. And now it's finally here.
Another split release between two Finnish labels, Kult Of Nihilow (Fleshpress, Dot [.]. Marzuraan, Boris, Church Of Misery) and Freak Animal (a noise/drone/industrial sublabel of the mighty Northern Heritage). This Finnish one man band continue of from where that 7", and their last full length (The Temple, a Julian Cope Head Heritage record of the month!) left off.
Beginning with an avalanche of skree and shimmer, Haare navigates his strange vessel, assembled from skulls and bones, sticks and twigs, leaves and dried flesh, through four extended soundscapes, each rife with high end, but offering much in the way of deep rumbling drones and buzzing black ambience. Everywhere fall hailstorms of corroded crumbling melody, so blackened they appear more as grey smears than anything resembling melodies. Malfunctioning machinery groans and whirs, clouds of warped effects are shot through with streaks of feedback like shafts of sunlight, explosions of post industrial chaos, riffs pulled to pieces, the parts nothing but jagged shards of crumbling shimmer and decayed drone, everything bathed in a gritty, grimey unearthly glow. It almost sounds like Avarus and Yellow Swans, dosed with LSD and sealed up in a cave with nothing but some busted amps, guitars with no strings, a junky 4-track and the spirit of the undead cave dwellers.
Creepy and noisy, heavy and drone-y, buzzy and blackened and almost psychedelic.
Unfortunately, like the 7" before it, this is crazy limited, ONLY 275 COPIES!! And almost out of print at the label. We got a bunch, but they won't last long. And once they're gone, there's a good chance we won't be able to get more.

HAARE Sacred Mushroom Clouds (Freak Animal / Kult Ov Nihilow) 7" 7.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Released on Freak Animal (a Northern Heritage offshoot dedicated to noise and industrial and drone music) and Kult Of Nihilow (home to Fleshpress, Dot [.]. Marzuraan, Boris, Church Of Misery, Ox) this ULTRA LIMITED 7" (only 270 copies!!!) is a massive slab of "dronoise" (just made that up but it's the perfect genre for stuff like this): dense clouds of caustic feedback, murky and thick and heavy, a bit like Sunroof! on some seriously bad drugs, the blissful raga vibe twisted and distorted into a roiling pit of black guitars and crumbling buzz. Side A is relentless and like dunking your head into a black hole. By side B the sound smoothes out a bit (only a bit) into a super harsh low end dronescape, huge tectonic rumbles beneath a swirling swarm of high end feedback squeals and streaks of barbed fuzz. Like Total on PCP.
LIMITED To 270 COPIES, we got about a dozen so act fast.

HAARE The Temple (Freak Animal) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

HAAS, ANDY Arnhem Land (Avant) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The unusual didjeridu of Haas meets up in improv duets with guests Fred Frith (guitar), Keiji Haino (voice), Ikue Mori (drum machines), Cyro Baptista (percussion), Anthony Coleman (organ), and Makigamai Koichi (voice).

HAAZZ & COMPANY Unlawful Noise (Atavistic / Unheard Music Series) cd 14.98
The Unheard Music series brings us another '70s free improv rarity. Dutch pianist Kees Hazevoet might not be a well-known name, but he was an early, integral player on the Amersterdam jazz scene back in the day, and on this 1976 album he is joined by what are certainly some big names: Peter Brotzmann, Han Bennink (and his brother Peter), Louis Moholo, and Johnny Dyani.

HABIBIYYA, THE If Man But Knew (Sunbeam) cd 16.98
We were intrigued the moment we saw a copy of this reissued early '70s Eastern-influenced tranquil psych gem. The back cover displays dark and mysteries photos of the five men in The Habibiya. All clad in turbans and sporting long beards (whoops, actually one's a woman and she's not bearded!). We could almost hear the mystique before we pushed play. When we did finally listen we were steadily reeled into their raga like hypnotic sounds, influenced heavily by the music of Sufi Muslims from Morocco, where they visited on what was apparently an extremely moving trip for them in 1971. In fact we had no idea at first that The Habibiyya weren't from somewhere in the East, as the music we were hearing sounded so effortless and true. We later learned that they were in fact from London and featured ex-members of Mighty Baby (kind of the UK equivalent of The Grateful Dead). But where the Mighty Baby stuff we heard was cool and jammy it never really transported us like this recording does. It's music to close your eyes to, as the rich sounds sweep you away, aiming for the sky as its deep hitting core glows with an undeniable spiritual force. While most bands of the era had their backstage area filled with booze and groupies, The Habibiyya mostly just had books with them backstage like the I Ching and texts from mystic minds like G.I. Gurdjieff and Aleister Crowley.
Using zither, piano, banjo, oboe, koto, shakuhachis and an adaptation of classical Moroccan Andalusi singing they were able to create a sound that felt both ancient and timeless. We can all agree that what usually happens when Western musicians try to tap into an eastern sound and feeling, is that the sound can fall miserably short, sounding tepid and watered down, but there are those special rare occasions, when regardless of origin or location, musicians can tap into a special spirit and make sounds that transcend place and time. The Habibiyya did just that!
MPEG Stream: "The Eye-Witness"
MPEG Stream: "Peregrinations Continued"
MPEG Stream: "Bird In God's Garden"

HABIBIYYA, THE If Man But Knew (Sunbeam) 2lp 34.00
Now availiable on 180g double-vinyl!
We were intrigued the moment we saw a copy of this reissued early '70s Eastern-influenced tranquil psych gem. The back cover displays dark and mysteries photos of the five men in The Habibiya. All clad in turbans and sporting long beards (whoops, actually one's a woman and she's not bearded!). We could almost hear the mystique before we pushed play. When we did finally listen we were steadily reeled into their raga like hypnotic sounds, influenced heavily by the music of Sufi Muslims from Morocco, where they visited on what was apparently an extremely moving trip for them in 1971. In fact we had no idea at first that The Habibiyya weren't from somewhere in the East, as the music we were hearing sounded so effortless and true. We later learned that they were in fact from London and featured ex-members of Mighty Baby (kind of the UK equivalent of The Grateful Dead). But where the Mighty Baby stuff we heard was cool and jammy it never really transported us like this recording does. It's music to close your eyes to, as the rich sounds sweep you away, aiming for the sky as its deep hitting core glows with an undeniable spiritual force. While most bands of the era had their backstage area filled with booze and groupies, The Habibiyya mostly just had books with them backstage like the I Ching and texts from mystic minds like G.I. Gurdjieff and Aleister Crowley.
Using zither, piano, banjo, oboe, koto, shakuhachis and an adaptation of classical Moroccan Andalusi singing they were able to create a sound that felt both ancient and timeless. We can all agree that what usually happens when Western musicians try to tap into an eastern sound and feeling, is that the sound can fall miserably short, sounding tepid and watered down, but there are those special rare occasions, when regardless of origin or location, musicians can tap into a special spirit and make sounds that transcend place and time. The Habibiyya did just that!
MPEG Stream: "The Eye-Witness"
MPEG Stream: "Peregrinations Continued"
MPEG Stream: "Bird In God's Garden"

HABITAT SOUND SYSTEM Meets Prince Zohar And The Mystics (Gematria) cd 9.98
Wow! This is by far the best modern dub record we've heard in ages! And you know we love us some vintage dub (Lee Perry, King Tubby, Prince Jammy, etc.) but we've been pretty underwhelmed with so much newly recorded dub these days. Most dub records recorded in the last decade tend to be nothing more but slick exercises in smoothed out reggae and cheesy electronics. Maybe perfect for swanky lounges and as backdrops for radio dj's but when we want dub we want it to be in our face, raw and vibrant, sizzling and brimming with heat and magic. And the debut full length from Habitat Sound System delivers just that!
This is REAL dub, designed to ring in your ears and move your body. No laptops or electronic middle of the road shortcuts here, instead you get a record that echoes with the true sound of organic dub. The instrumentation includes bass, piano, melodica, harmonica, organ, trumpet, electric and acoustic guitar, array mbira, analog synth and of course tasty blown out vocals. When demos from this record started surfacing, dub folks were freaking out, as they were hungry for something new and exciting in a scene that had been overtaken by dull and predictable modern dub, drab and boring and so pointless. Even some of the true originals like Scientist and Mad Professor heard this and gave it major props, in fact Mad Professor ended up doing additional mixing, and even mastered the disc. We first heard Habitat Sound System, fronted by Irwin's brother Preston, earlier this year on a great split with Monosov Swirnoff on Eclipse records, and while this is a way different beast than what Swirnoff does when he plays with Ilya Monosov or in his psych-rock outfit The Shining Path, there is no doubt that he definitely has his finger on the pulse of dub in a way that's been totally kicking our asses! When we first got this in and were playing it in the store, it not only had everyone working nodding their heads and subtly sort of grooving, but customers who instantly bought copies didn't believe us when we told them it was a brand new record, as they were convinced that this was a lost seventies gem from Jamaica. Truth is, Habitat Sound System have created a timeless and near perfect slab of summery dub.
So damn good and of course highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Black Sugar Dub"
MPEG Stream: "Hard Rope Dub"
MPEG Stream: "Eritrean Lovers Dub"

HACO Happiness Proof (Detector) cd 9.98
US release of a new solo album by Japanese avant-garde vocalist/composer Haco, who used to sing for the prog-pop band After Dinner. More recently, she formed the wonderful Hoahio trio with Sachiko M and Yagi Michiyo. Fans of that group (we listed their recent Tzadik album not long ago) will definitely enjoy "Happiness Proof". It's a similar sort of unpredictable electronic-infused avant-pop. Haco gets a little help from her friends, as lots of interesting folks appear on this disc -- it's almost a who's-who of Japanese underground scenesters: Tsuyama Atsushi (Omoide Hatoba, Acid Mothers Temple, Akaten, etc.), Yamamoto Seiichi (Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba, etc.), Uchihashi Kazuhisa (Altered States, Ground Zero, etc. -- he plays daxophone on here as well as guitar!), and turntablist Otomo Yoshihide (Ground Zero, ISO, etc.), among others. There's also contributions from Belgian Pierre Bastien and his Mecanium, a mechanical orchestra. Delightful. Note the nice price too!

HADEN, PETRA Sings: The Who Sell Out (Bar None) cd 16.98
Ladies and gentlemen, may we direct your attention to the center stage for... The Petra Haden Singers! Well, not quite... make that singular not plural, but the classically trained lady's tackling a full chorus' worth of parts. This is Ms Haden's COMPLETELY acapella performance of the COMPLETE The Who Sell Out album. We've gotta give the gal props not only for her vocal arrangin' skills but also for the thoroughness of her savvy cover art replication job. Check out those photos! They're a total hoot! Nonetheless, we'd wager that whether or not this cd finds a permanent place in your library will ultimately depend not on your love for The Who, the original album, nor Ms Haden, but rather on your appreciation for acapella music. Each song is pretty much simple and straight up, somewhat generic female-sung acapella. Y'know the kinda bland but pleasantly out of the ordinary stuff they might have on some TV talk show to spice the afternoon up a little. So, although she's unarguably accomplished an impressive feat, unfortunately the end results make for much less remarkable listening than anticipated or hoped for.
MPEG Stream: "I Can See For Miles"
MPEG Stream: "Sunrise"

HAEMOTH Vice, Suffering And Destruction (ISO666) cd 14.98

HAFLER TRIO If Take, Then Take (C.I.P.) lp 38.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Is there much more to say about The Hafler Trio that hasn't been said already by us or anyone else for that matter? Perhaps. Yet another month and another Hafler Trio album arrives, stretching our feeble efforts to describe the audio / visual / contexual productions of Mr. Andrew M. McKenzie, the sole member of the Hafler Trio with assistance from other like-minded techgnostics on occasion. For the month of Septembe 2005, the Hafler Trio album in question is If Take, Then Take which marks the first full length LP that McKenzie has engineered in over a decade -- this, of course in the wake of numerous multi-cd sets and 10"s galore. In describing this record, the C.I.P. label offered an exceptional introduction for If Take, Then Take: "Unanswered questions, unasked-for responses, stimulus and response exercises conducted and presented for the benefit of a select few. Hafler Trio has always asked more of the listener than many sound artists do, with questions and ideas that provoke and, like an open invitation, await response from those who are willing to tackle, often at length, the ideas presented. The audio cleanses the aural palette and refurbishes it nicely. The ideas in the booklet are available to those who wish additional illuminations, provocations, questions, and -- when the light is right -- answers, may add greater tricks to their own personal repertoire of knowledge. Please note: in this instance, knowledge may be considered fact, fiction, or entirely up for debate."
As to the musical program found within, McKenzie offers another breathtaking variation on the theme of hidden ambience, disrupted silences, and rich timbral minimalism. Limited to 400 copies and signed by Andrew Mckenzie and includes a fancy trapezoidal booklet of text and art. And as always, he prefers for us to not offer any sound samples. Also, if you missed that part a few sentences back, this is ULTRA LIMITED!!! So it might take us a while to get more when we run out, and there's always a chance we won't be able to get more at all, so act fast!

HAFLER TRIO Mastery of Money (Korm Plastics) cd 22.00

HAFLER TRIO Seven Hours Sleep (Korm Plastics) cd 23.00
Originally released in 1985 as a set of 2 EPs on LAYLAH and re-issued "wrongly" by Mute / Grey Area in 1992, Seven Hours Sleep marks yet another in the ongoing reissue campaign by Korm Plastics of work by The Hafler Trio. Seven Hours Sleep also happens to mark the last contributions from former Cabaret Voltaire member Chris Watson, although Andrew MacKenzie (the other founder of the 'trio') was still claiming that The Hafler Trio involved such fictional characters as Dr. Edward Moolenbeek and Robert Spridgeon. In recent years, MacKenzie has focused his activities upon the essentialization of the power of the human voice, as he has extracted intensely brilliant tonal fragments from the voices of Jonsi Birgisson, David Tibet, and Blixa Bargeld, stretching them into some of the most deliriously beautiful and acoustically powerful minimalism the world has ever witnessed. Well over two decades ago, the human voice was still central to MacKenzie's work in The Hafler Trio although in a slightly different context. Instead of focusing upon the essence of the human voice as a gnostic spark for enlightenment through sound, MacKenzie was far more interested in how perception and communication were intertwined, and how it was possible to create paranoiac atmospheres through the obfuscation of language's syntax. Within Seven Hours Sleep, MacKenzie rewires utterances, screams and megaphone broadcasts into a decentered collage of mediated fragments, rupturing flickering drones and unsettling field recordings. MacKenzie has demonstrated his power to confuse and delight through his complex laboratory of sound, mythology, and context; Seven Hours Sleep is no different. Sorry, no mp3 samples can be made available of the Hafler Trio's work.

HAFLER TRIO, THE A Ec Ad, Halda Afram? (Important) cd ep 10.98
A Ec Ad, Halda Afram marks the fourth entry in yet another Hafler Trio series. At least for this body of work all published by Important Records, the Hafler Trio has kept his work reasonably priced in spite of its limited release. At the same time, each entry in the Important Records series clocks in at about 20 minutes, so the dollar per musical minute ratio is still about the same. Regardless, A Ec Ad, Halda Afram? is a bit of a departure for the Hafler Trio as Andrew McKenzie drops a slow crawling breakbeat into his sonic transmogrifier. Sounding an awful lot like the devastating beats of Techno Animal or The Bug, these breaks do possess a curious, disjointed warble that makes this uniquely the Hafler Trio. But of course, McKenzie takes almost 10 minutes of his alotted 20 very quietly shuffling around his soundfield before unleashing these breaks. Pretty great and as always, McKenzie leaves us scratching our heads; but one has to wonder if Important will go out of their way to irritate the Hafler Trio fans (and probably Andrew McKenzie for that matter!) by releasing the whole series in a single package much like the Acid Mothers Temple incidient a while back. Remember the Magical Power From Mars series?
No MP3 samples as requested by the Hafler Trio.

HAFLER TRIO, THE A House Waiting For Its Master (Rossbin) 10" 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With so many Hafler Trio releases being released from every corner of the world, it's not surprising that we almost missed this 10" on the Spanish label Rossbin, which typically promotes the austere strains of improv and electro-acoustics. Released earlier in 2004, A House Waiting For Its Master is pressed on a very thick piece of semi-transparent vinyl with three mid-length tracks of the high-quality dronescaping that has become the standard for The Hafler Trio in the past few months. At times, the drones are quite lovely, sounding like David Jackman's placid sustained flute constructions; yet, Andrew McKenzie (the sole member of the Trio) manipulates and modulates his minimalist constructions into abrasive psychoacoustic rumblings and intense acousmatic noises. Stock is limited!

HAFLER TRIO, THE A Thirsty Fish (Korm Plastics) 2cd 24.00
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 ‹ 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 ‹ 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.
Sorry, no MP3 samples are available for any Hafler Trio works.

HAFLER TRIO, THE An Utterance Of The Supreme Ventriloquist (Soleilmoon) cd 21.00
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 Utterances 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. And again, we cannot offer any MP3s for you to sample per the wishes of the Hafler Trio.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Being A Firefighter Isn't About Squirting Water (Important) cd 10.98
As much as Andrew McKenzie of The Hafler Trio likes to present little bits of Gnostic wisdom in the titles of his records, Being A Firefighter Isn't About Squirting Water is oddly lacking in cleverness, weirdness, obtuseness, Hafler Trio-ness. In case you might think that McKenzie is losing his mastery of allegorical puzzles, metaphorical misdirections, and megalomaniacal obsessiveness, he does boldly claim that this record is "a product that will allow you take charge of your destiny completely." How 20 minutes of subtle wafts of feedback can provide what self-help gurus have been claiming to do for centuries is the precise location for the art of the Hafler Trio. Lest this (or any other Hafler Trio album) be construed as mindless New Ageisms, these wispy fragments of rippled drones have plenty of shadowy forms lurking in the distance, and at least the sense that a profound intellect has constructed this body of work.
Being A Firefighter is the fifth CDEP published by Important Records. As with the rest in the series, this is woefully limited; and as with all Hafler Trio albums, there can be no MP3 samples.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Exactly As I Am (Important) 2cd 27.00
Exactly As I Am is the third and final chapter in the trilogy of releases in which The Hafler Trio employs the vocals of Jonsi Birgisson as the only source material. The Hafler Trio shouldn't need much of an introduction, as we've championed his work for many years now; but for those of you new to The Hafler Trio, this project is the work of one Andrew M. McKenzie who concerns himself with a rigorous psychoacoustic research that has evolved into a neo-gnostic amalgamation of psychology and spirituality as applied through extreme forms of technology. McKenzie is never easy to digest, even when he might be employing gnostic idioms as a slight of hand to confuse his audience. In recent years, McKenzie has been heavily involved with extremely long-form compositions, most notably How To Slice A Loaf Of Bread whose two parts spanned six cds of sound material, plus a dense amount of additional text. Exactly As I Am along with Exactly As I Say and Exactly As I Do act as a similiarly overwhelming body of work, in which he extracts particular harmonic phrases and angelic drones from the voice of Jonsi Birgisson (best known as the crooner from Sigur Ros). McKenzie is a masterful technician with sound; and he proves his expertise over his craft yet again with Exactly As I Am, as oceanic dronescapes flutter and swell into intensely bright timbres that are so pure as to become almost too much to take.
McKenzie doesn't like his work to be converted into MP3s, and we have obliged his request. So you can only take our word for it, Exactly As I Am is a quite wonderful recording.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Exactly As I Do (Important) 2cd 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yes, the man loves a mini-series. There have been many sequels, triptychs, and serial works for the Hafler Trio, the tech-Gnostic program of grandiose minimalism and conceptualized electronic manifestations of sound, engineered by the lone member of the Halfer Trio, Andrew M. McKenzie. Exactly As I Do falls within a sub-series of a larger body of related work dealing with the essence of the human voice, and this album is the second album in a triptych centered upon the voice of Sigur Ros' Jonsi Birgisson. With the first album called Exactly As I Say and packaged in the same oversized folio, McKenzie is not making it easy for anybody in calling this album Exactly As I Do. Nevertheless, these are two distinctive albums which are variations upon a theme (in this case Birgisson's voice). As a preamble to Exactly As I Do, McKenzie states that he is investigating "voice, the most human expression of a person, striped down and elabrated to show the essence of a person, and a human leading towards the divine. Hopefully." As far as his essentialization of Jonsi Birgisson's voice, McKenzie extracts particular tones, frequencies, and breathy fragments, which he recontextualizes into dense chorales of majestic drones tinged with a bout of melancholia. In a lot of ways, these drones resemble that kid's toy consisting of a flexible plastic tube that you swing in a circle over your head to produce a constant hoovering sound. McKenzie, of course, twists and folds all of these sounds into a beautiful maelstrom of polyphonous Birgissons. Sorry, McKenzie firmly disapproves of offering song samples and we will oblige his wishes with no sound clips of his work on our website.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Exactly As I Say (Phonometrography) 2cd 33.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Exactly As I Say is The Hafler Trio's third offering from an ongoing series that investigates the atomization of the human voice into post-linguistic mantras. The two previous offerings in this series reworked the respective voices of Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld and Current 93's David Tibet; and here, h3o has taken on the task of reworking the ephemeral voice of Jonsi Birgisson best known for his androgynous croons in Sigur Ros. On all three albums, Andrew McKenzie (the presiding genius and essentially the only member of the Hafler Trio) extracts what may be constued as an essence from those unique voices and molds them into his own signature smoke-and-mirror conceptual program. Even before Sigur Ros began to woo flocks of Iceland-o-philes out of the woodwork, we had been scratching our head about them; and our opinion of Sigur Ros' saccharine orchestrations was validated by a mash-up which lumped Celine Dion's vocals on top of one of Sigur Ros' hit songs. Admittedly, there is a beauty to Sigur Ros and their bright-eyed angelic neo-babble; but it sometimes hits you like a sugar rush and leaves you with a stomachache. Fortunately, there's Exactly As I Say, which removes everything superfluous about Sigur Ros and leaves simply the beauty. Of the two hour long compositions on Exactly As I Say "Diksha" is the more dramatic piece concentrating mostly on the breathing patterns of Birgisson and turning them into ring-modulated flutterings that have the eerie resonance of terra-cotta pottery scaping against itself. Later on this mutates into an extended dronescape much like the work of Eliane Radigue or Phill Niblock. The other piece "Para Bindu" continues along a similar path, which in turn has it's parallels to many of the Hafler Trio's recent works for extended timbral interplay. In other words, this is another great album from the Hafler Trio.
And as always, the band requests that there be no Hafler Trio MP3s, sorry.

HAFLER TRIO, THE How To Reform Mankind (Korm Plastics) cd 22.00
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.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we cannot offer sound samples of the Hafler Trio's work. Oh well.

HAFLER TRIO, THE How To Slice A Loaf Of Bread (lengthwise) (Phonometrography) 3cd 48.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's ridiculous. Yet, by know you should know if you need to own this or not. This is the second 3cd set from the Hafler Trio in the How To Slice A Loaf Of Bread series. The packaging is as elaborate and beautiful as the Fluxus art editions from the '60s, but be warned, this is incredibly fragile! Musically, fragments spiral into enigmatic drones and psychologically profound atmospheres. We only have a couple of these in stock, and considering that there's only 500 in print, there's little use in waxing poetic as found elsewhere on these Aquarius reviews. Buy it now or spend five or six times this already hefty pricetag on eBay in a couple of months.
As always, there can be no Hafler Trio MP3s. The aeons have cursed us once.

HAFLER TRIO, THE I Never Knew That's Who You Thought You Were (Important) cd 10.98
For years, Andrew McKenzie has presented the Hafler Trio's gnostically inspired compositions as parts of a larger series, such as The Golden Hammer series (including six albums of conceptually driven collage material) and the ludicrously expensive Who Sees Goes On series (with seven 10"s each costing close to $80.00 each). The series that McKenzie has released through Important has developed into quite an interesting body of work. Each of the components to the Important Records series has featured short programs of about 20 minutes and dashing graphic design with elaborate silkscreened printing. Musically, this series appears to be based on voice, although McKenzie hasn't mentioned what the source material is, so it's probably irrelevant anyway. These aerated drones maintain a gossamer elegance with subtly sinister underbelly. As McKenzie has been stretching his albums across massive triple-disc sets, the brevity (both in terms of price as well as the time) of this series is certainly welcome. As with all Hafler Trio recordings, McKenzie doesn't want us to post any MP3s of his work... so we'll comply.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Kill The King (Korm Plastics) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Kisses With Both Hands From Gods Little Toy (Important) cd ep 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Does this man ever sleep? What are we at now? A release a month? More? We're seriously headed toward Acid Mothers Territory at this rate. The mysterious Hafler Trio (aka Andrew McKenzie) continue to explore the reaches of the dronological universe whilst raising money to cover his medicine and hospitalization, making up for his lack of health care (he's been quite ill for some time), this time with a brief, 19 minute piece, beautifully packaged as always, and pressed on a cool 3"cd embedded in 5" regular sized plastic cd. The sound is of course quite similar to recent h3o missives, but just different enough to keep things interesting. A shimmering barely audible industrial drone, shuddering and wheeing, is suddenly interrupted quite shockingly by a loud cough and then a smattering of applause. Not sure if that's some sort of veiled refernece to McKenzie's illness or he just thought it sounded cool. But it definitely interrupts the flow pretty dramatically. A static ticking soon starts up, wrapped in reverb and effects, stutters and then shifts back into the serene underwater thrum of the opening few minutes, with some less serene sonic embellishments: occasional buzzing short circuits, distorted telephone tones, chirping cricket high end whir, sputtery microphone glitch, murky half melodies and muffled distorted snippets of dialogue.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Normally (Soleilmoon) 2cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The gnostic censors have prohibited us from including MP3s of the Hafler Trio's work on the AQ website; so you'll just have to take our word that Normally is another exquisite Hafler Trio composition of psychoacoustically challenging dronework, this time entirely drawn from a series of vocalizations from Einstuerzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld. Only during a disruptive jolt on one of the two discs does Bargeld's inimitable voice become apparent, elsewhere the Halfer Trio has reduced the Bargeld voice into an eerie, extended drone. Of course, Andrew McKenzie -- the sole member of the 'trio' -- has included dozens of pages of ludicrously impossible to understand, post-rational / post-narrative texts for your amusement. Limited to 500 copies.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Only The Hand That Erases Can Write The True Thing. (Small Voices) 2x10" 40.00
SUPER LIMITED!!!! WE ONLY HAVE A HANDFUL OF THESE IN STOCK AND MOST LIKELY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET MORE!!!!!
Yet another installment in the Hafler Trio's seemingly endless release schedule of late, all sonically amazing and brilliantly packaged and of course CRAZY EXPENSIVE. This one is no different. A double 10" meticulously packaged in a gorgeous gatefold sleeve. Drones are still what it's all about soundwise, and you certainly won't hear any complaining from us! If you've picked up any of the recent Hafler Trio releases you'll have a good idea of where we are in the Trio's journey through the world of drones. As always a completely mesmerizing and soul stirring sonic experience.
And if you somehow missed the above warning, this is quite limited and once we run out they are most likely gone for good.

HAFLER TRIO, THE The Sea Org (Korm Plastics) cd 22.00
The Sea Org is a curious document, even for the Hafler Trio. This was originally released as a 10" on Touch Records back in 1987, before The Hafler Trio and Touch ended their relationship very acrimoniously. Touch (through their affiliation with Mute's Grey Area reissue series in the early '90s) had published all of this material on a compendium of Hafler Trio loose ends entitled All Things That Rise Must Converge. The Sea Org was part of the Golden Hammer series, which was a loose taxonomic heading for some of the early Hafler Trio recordings. What specific allegorical connectivity exists between The Sea Org and fellow Golden Hammer recordings such as Bang! An Open Letter or Seven Hours Sleep is anybody's guess; however, there is a general similarity throughout the series in the Hafler Trio's research into media manipulation, forged scientific evidence, and conspiracy-driven paranoia.
At this time, The Hafler Trio may have included Chris Watson working alongside Andrew McKenzie, although verification of this or any fact about the 'Trio' is impossible to the point of being moot. Regardless, The Sea Org is one of the most inscrutible documents of The Hafler Trio. And that's saying something! The Trio offers long passages of varispeed pitched audio collages of cooing pigeons, weird pipe organ sounds, and mechanized creakings, which in turn are punctuated and broken by decontextualized media samples. Make of it what you will.
There are no MP3s available for Hafler Trio material. Boo.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Where Are You? The Partial Results of An Investigation By... (Phonometrography) cd 33.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In the early 80s, Andrew McKenzie of The Hafler Trio had developed a friendship with David Tibet, around the same time that Tibet was beginning the ideas that formed Current 93. As a result, the two had planned on a collaboration which was supposedly to be called Dogs Blood Rising, which Tibet later used as both a one-off live project as well as the title for one of the most chilling Current 93 records. The press releases cite that this project never materialized beyond a few works in progress "due to never explained circumstances." Yeah, it's the Hafler Trio, so the mysterious termination of this project has to go unexplained. Well, over twenty years go by and McKenzie resurrects the tapes in the form of Where Are You? within a Halfer Trio series based on voice, language, and what McKenzie qualifies as essense. Like Normally, the first in the h3o voice series, McKenzie stretches Tibet's voice into a beautifully crystalline drone. Sorry no MP3 samples, and this is limited to 500 copies.

HAFLER TRIO, THE Whistling About Chickens (Fire-Inc) 2cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
True to his extensive catalog of techgnostic experiments with information and sound, Andrew McKenzie (the sole member of the Hafler Trio) offers another quizzically brilliant album which fuses sound, word, and context into a massive knot of post-rational thought. Musically speaking, McKenzie has reduced all of the erratic jumpcuts and jarring juxtapositions that dominated his early albums down to a refined aesthetic of tone flutter. Controlled feedback oscillations appear to be the primary material for Whistling About Chickens; however, McKenzie's use of feedback bears little resemblance to the all-encompassing mass of Merzbow or even the no-input mixing board work of Sachiko M. Instead, McKenzie resamples, filters, processes, and composed feedback in such as way as to provide the impressions that these sounds bear witness to something much greater, something which has to be closely investigated in order to discover its nature. It must be stated that there is the possibility (like most Gnostic revelations) that this 'something' is actually nothing, and McKenzie has been playing with the aesthetics of simulation to such an extent as to mimic impression of that which does not exist. Considering that the title of the album itself is an extract from the aphorism "Talking about music is like whistling about chickens," there is a Dada absurdity that must be read into the Hafler Trio's work. Nonetheless, McKenzie has done an immaculate job inscribing a sense of mystery into his sublimely beautiful minimalism.

HAFLER TRIO, THE / ANDREW LILES / COLIN POTTER 3 Eggs (Important) cd 14.98
Almost a year ago exactly, if you happened to glance at the calendar for San Francisco's Great American Music Hall, you might have spotted an upcoming performance by The Hafler Trio, marking the first time that The Hafler Trio played San Francisco since an infamous show featuring The Hafler Trio, Phauss, and Zbigniew Karkowski held at the Kennel Club way back in 1991. Plans had been drawn up for an entire US tour for The Hafler Trio, with Andrew McKenzie inviting Colin Potter (also of Nurse With Wound), Andrew Liles, and Matt Waldron (of irr. app. (ext.)) to join him as the supporting cast in the Trio; however, the logistics of the tour were doomed from the onset and the already scheduled dates had to be cancelled due to what the Hafler Trio called "extreme incompetence". Like pretty much every touring ensemble these days, The Hafler Trio planned on recording an album to be sold only at the performances. While the tour was cancelled, the recordings were fortunately not thrown out. McKenzie continued working with sound material provided by Liles and Potter (or at least that's what we assume), resulting in 3 Eggs.
The whistling drones modulating with an elegance and subtly indicative of the Hafler Trio's signature over the past six or seven years dominate the album; but McKenzie allows numerous instances for Liles and Potter to utter their own take on sonic sculpture, with deformed bits of vocalizations and samples of Victorian quirkiness appearing from the Liles camp, and deep throngs of gaping drones speaking to Potter's sensibility. The only question we have to ask is why Mr. Waldron was not invited to participate in this venture. Oh well. It's testament to the fact that the ill-fated 2005 tour would have been an amazing performance regardless of whatever that "extreme incompetence" actually consisted of.
Sorry, no MP3 samples of anything Hafler Trio related.

HAGEN, NINA Fearless (Koch) cd 15.98
What a Blast from the Past! Probably the weirdest record produced by Giorgio Moroder, Nina Hagen's 1984 release Fearless has some of the craziest new-wave-disco tracks EVER made. Charting with "New York, New York", Hagen's tribute to that city's underground club culture, the rest of the record is a no-holds-barred romp of excess glamour and zany electro-funk, topped with her trademark bi-polar vocal range. There's even a cameo by the Red Hot Chili Peppers (man, they've been around for a while!). If you've been rocking lately to Maurice Fulton and/or his crazy "Paris Hilton" singing wife, Mu, or any of the Tiger Sushi G.D.M. series of past and present club jams, you might want to take an indulgent gander here. Guaranteed that the unique vocal stylings and punk-funk freakiness will have you saying WTF?! pretty darn quick. Glad to have this reissued! Also be sure to check out her Nunsexmonkrock album as well if you're new to Nina.
MPEG Stream: "New York New York"
MPEG Stream: "TV Snooze"
MPEG Stream: "Springtime In Paris"

HAGERTY, NEIL MICHAEL Plays That Good Old Rock And Roll (Drag City) cd 14.98
Neil Hagerty (Royal Trux) must think that the pinnacle of "Good Old Rock And Roll" is the explosion of major label alternative rock bands from the early to mid '90s, like Blind Melon or the Spin Doctors. Is this supposed to be ironic? Either way, this is a contender for worst album of the year, along with that dreadful David Grubbs album. Good grief!
RealAudio clip: "Sayonara"
RealAudio clip: "Storm Song"

HAGERTY, NEIL MICHAEL s/t (Drag City) cd 14.98
What does it say about the state of my brain that when I played this in the front room of the store, I hated the solo record by Neil Hagerty of Royal Trux, yet now that I am listening to it in the office on my iMac with its KICK ASS new iSub subwoofer under the desk, it doesn't sound so bad? Am I just enamored of my new subwoofer, or is the subwoofer highlighting the pulsing bass underbelly of the music -- so much so that its beauty is finally revealed to me? Can you tell that I have very little to say about this record? The thick curtains of hazy feedback familiar to fans of Royal Trux are not present here, having been pulled back a bit for a cleaner sound that still manages to retain some of that trademark seedy Hagerty tone -- although it reminds more of Ween and their masterful almost-parodies of established genres rather than, say, the Rolling Stones.
RealAudio clip: "Know That"
RealAudio clip: "Whiplash in Park"

HAGERTY, NEIL MICHAEL The Howling Hex (Drag City) cd 14.98
Dave Katznelson, the force behind Birdman Recordings and one of AQ's favorite people, has the following superlatives to say about the (not-so) new Hagerty record:
"Record of the year so far... I was a huge fan of his debut solo record, and this new one, his third, might even surpass it. Neil's stoned playing (I know he is sober, but it's stoned all the same) which is as tight as it feels loose...is to these ears the new classic sound for the war generation. The songs are great. The live renditions of past solo material (Rockslide, Creature Catcher) is drony like CAN...Velvety grooves and dirt (alot of dirt). Firebase Ripcord is an all-out hit. I play this record for people who do not follow music and the look on their faces is, 'Wow...what a unique sound...what good shit.' The Rolling Stones don't do it like this anymore. Neil Michael Hagerty & The Howling Hex are creating such a fresh, new rock scenario, that it is bewildering that this man has ever been in a band before (Let alone the Royal Trux and Pussy Galore). The sound is a freshness you usually hear on a band's/artist's first record. It is sexy."
MPEG Stream: "Watching The Sands"
MPEG Stream: "Greasy Saint"

HAGGARD, MERLE Cheatin (Capital) cd 6.98
Apparently in an effort not to be out done by Columbia / American and their Johnny Cash "Love / God / Murder" trilogy, Capitol has decided to release a quartet of themed best of compilations -- Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison & Cheatin' -- from California's own bad boy of country Merle Haggard. Unlike many of his country contemporaries Haggard actually lived much of the life he sang about: struggling to make a living, living a life of crime and finally serving a prison sentence at San Quentin before straightening out and succeeding in his musical career. Along with all the expected studio recordings of Haggard's hits there are quite a few excellent live recordings thrown in here and there to boot, and what the series lacks in documentation -- no liner notes -- and brevity (each cd clocks in at around 30 minutes a piece) it makes up for big time in price. Nope, that's not a misprint there, they are really only 6.98 each. If you don't already have a healthy collection of Merle's music why not buy all four?
RealAudio clip: "High On A Hilltop"
RealAudio clip: "It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad)"

HAGGARD, MERLE Drinkin (Capital) cd 6.98
Apparently in an effort not to be out done by Columbia / American and their Johnny Cash "Love / God / Murder" trilogy, Capitol has decided to release a quartet of themed best of compilations -- Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison & Cheatin' -- from California's own bad boy of country Merle Haggard. Unlike many of his country contemporaries Haggard actually lived much of the life he sang about: struggling to make a living, living a life of crime and finally serving a prison sentence at San Quentin before straightening out and succeeding in his musical career. Along with all the expected studio recordings of Haggard's hits there are quite a few excellent live recordings thrown in here and there to boot, and what the series lacks in documentation -- no liner notes -- and brevity (each cd clocks in at around 30 minutes a piece) it makes up for big time in price. Nope, that's not a misprint there, they are really only 6.98 each. If you don't already have a healthy collection of Merle's music why not buy all four?
RealAudio clip: "I Threw Away The Rose"
RealAudio clip: "Who'll Buy The Wine"

HAGGARD, MERLE Hurtin (Capital) cd 6.98
Apparently in an effort not to be out done by Columbia / American and their Johnny Cash "Love / God / Murder" trilogy, Capitol has decided to release a quartet of themed best of compilations -- Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison & Cheatin' -- from California's own bad boy of country Merle Haggard. Unlike many of his country contemporaries Haggard actually lived much of the life he sang about: struggling to make a living, living a life of crime and finally serving a prison sentence at San Quentin before straightening out and succeeding in his musical career. Along with all the expected studio recordings of Haggard's hits there are quite a few excellent live recordings thrown in here and there to boot, and what the series lacks in documentation -- no liner notes -- and brevity (each cd clocks in at around 30 minutes a piece) it makes up for big time in price. Nope, that's not a misprint there, they are really only 6.98 each. If you don't already have a healthy collection of Merle's music why not buy all four?
RealAudio clip: "Silver Wings"
RealAudio clip: "Every Fool Has A Rainbow"

HAGGARD, MERLE If I Could Only Fly (Anti) cd 17.98
Goddamn. Merle Haggard is so much cooler than you or I could ever be. I mean, he just oozes cool. Maybe even more than 'the man in black'. This record, released through Epitaph (who also recently released the Tom Waits record) is as good as any of the records he released 20 years ago, but holds up in 2000. Definitely better than hearing Johnny Cash do Tom Petty. It's rough and raw and beautiful. Sometimes playful, sometimes scary. And as always, I hope that kids who love Palace and Songs:Ohia and all that stuff, hike up their pants and give this stuff a try.