The Hafler Trio by Richard Moule
They say when the going gets tough...
It's a lame adage at the best of times, and a simplistic explanation in
illustrating how some people are able to overcome insurmountable obstacles
at the worst.
But in the case of Andrew McKenzie, you have to wonder how he is
physically and psychologically able to continue his prodigious output.
McKenzie, the mastermind behind the experimental sonic entity the
HaflerTrio, has contracted Hepatitis B and Auto Immune Hepatitis. If not
treated, each of the diseases can lead to death.
McKenzie's illness has been compounded by the fact it is not being
treated. He has lost the access to subsidized government health care both in
his adopted country, Iceland, and his native country of Britain.
Anyone who has read his emotionally wrenching online journal entries
(www.god-emil.dk/emil/meep/blah) knows the liver diseases have left him
physically and emotionally drained.
"It just makes it slower to do things," says McKenzie. "That's all,
really. I suppose there is increased focus due to the possible occurrence of
death at (more or less) any moment. This is not bad—just an impediment,
sometimes. Relaxation is not a possibility. Sometimes being able to stop and
take stock is an important part of doing things. A luxury I can't afford."
Still, McKenzie continues to plug away with the intestinal fortitude
of an ox. His rate of releases for the last two years has been staggering.
So far there have at least a dozen releases in different formats on various
labels, including Rossbin, Soleilmoon, Ossonnossos, Korn Plastics, Die Stadt,
Important Records, and Phonometrography.
Three of the most anticipated releases have been the six-CD set,
How to Slice A Loaf of Broad (Phonometrography), the double-CD Normally
(Soleilmoon), featuring the voice of Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld,
and æ3o & h3æ (Phonometrography), a twin 3-inch CD project with Autechre.
The overlapping incremental drones for How to Slice A Loaf of
Bread were developed for a performance held at the University of Central
Lancashire back in May of last year. The event was a multimedia sensory
overload, as the participants were taken to different locations—a café, pub,
church, and arts center—and immersed in projections, happenings, sound,
and some tea and toast.
The handbill for the event featured the cryptic puzzle: "Three entrances
connected by/seven processes at one time/and several locations/viewable by
all/intelligible by some/reproducible by none."
That conundrum may seem willfully obtuse, but it's hardly surprising.
Certainly the extensive liner notes, graphs, and essays that have
accompanied his CDs over the years often have been highly metaphorical
and at times often arcane.
McKenzie is a rigorously deep thinker who possesses an in-depth
knowledge of various religions and philosophies. "I am engaged in a
struggle to manifest myself here and now, to try actualize a something in
myself that can lead to a building block for something that will transform
energies of various kinds in the way that they should be," he says. "This
takes an immense amount of effort, and I wish simply to be more and more
able to accomplish something of it. This is a never-ending series of informed
trial and error, and I pray that I shall be able to accomplish some of this in
present time, rather than in a script which I have not seen."
This intellectual seriousness is a marked contrast to the sleight
of hand prankster-ism that existed when he and former Cabaret Voltaire
alumnus Chris Watson started the group back in 1980. The pair, like
its sonic counterparts at the time—Current 93, Nurse With Wound and
Psychic TV, of which McKenzie was briefly a member—was mischievous and
deliberately misinformative. The two referred to themselves as trio when
one of its members didn't even exist. That member, the fictitious Dr. Edward
Moolenbeck, was purportedlyto be an expert in psycho-acoustic research who
edited the journal Science Review in the '30s.
1984's debut Bang! An Open Letter was supposedly based on the
acoustic research of scientist Dr. Robert Spridgeon, who ran the Robol Sound
Recordings in Sweden, dedicated to the study of the perception and utilization
of sound. Both the man and the institution were fabrications.
Sonically the album was an unsettling collage of vocal loops, field
recordings, radio broadcasts, and ambient drones. It also introduced many
of the elements that would appear on subsequent Hafler Trio albums. Watson
remained until after 1987's A Thirsty Fish, leaving McKenzie off on his own
explorations. Around the same time of his magnificent trilogy—1991's Kill
the King (Silent), 1992's Mastery of Money (Touch), and 1993's How to Reform
Mankind (Touch)—McKenzie added a sexual component to his sound art.
1991's Masturbatorium EP, which was the first installment in a trilogy
on sexual energy, dealt with the female libido and was a soundtrack to a
performance piece by Annie Sprinkle. This was followed six years later by
Fuck, which focused on male sexuality, albeit from McKenzie's perspective. A
proposed final part is to be titled I Love You.
What made Masturbatorium different sound-wise from the experimental
sound fields of drones, layered electronics, and field recordings that McKenzie
had been exploring was the addition of the techno rhythms at the end of piece
courtesy of the Anti-Group.
On the subject of how he works with sound and what instruments he
uses, the computer programmer, who grew up teaching classical guitar, says,
"Over the years I have used many systems. I've changed, as technology has
changed, and some things fade away, and others come up. I work with sound
in any way that I can that is applicable. I use anything I can get my hands on,
if it 'works' with the project at hand.
"I'm not particularly interested in drones, rather in things that take
place at different rates than normally experienced. As to overtones, I'm
interested in the inner relationships between frequencies, and what they can
tell me about various principles, as well as the source of the sound itself."
This study of sonic relationships recently led McKenzie to inaugurate
a series of vocal projects. The first was Normally, his collaboration with
Bargeld. On the first disc, McKenzie reconfigures the voice of Bargeld after
having him repeat a phrase in three ways: a threatening whisper, a regular-
speaking voice and a hysterical scream. The second disc is composed of
Bargeld repeating three "meaningful" vowels, arranged according the rules
of the Sanskrit language, which McKenzie has been studying.
The Autechre collaboration came about after McKenzie was approached
by the British electronic duo, which was a long-time admirer. Ironically,
for a group known for complex folding rhythms, Autechre's piece, "æ3o" is
beat-less and leans more towards power electronics and disembodied vocals,
while McKenzie's "h3æ" is a sound-field that at times sears with jet-powered
ferocity.
So what's next for McKenzie? At press time, another elaborate multi-
media event, this one lasting seven days at the Horse Hospital arts space in
London, was planned for the end of June. Plus, "lots of records and trying to
stay alive," he says. "The last goes first."
Scissors Cut Arrow is out now on Phonometrography.
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