The Hafler Trio are perhaps the most unsung of the so-called "early" industrial bands. And that's a shame, because the Hafler Trio were and are very innovative and ahead of their time… unafraid to dive headfirst into total noise, or sparse minimal ambience. They are in many ways, a thinking man's industrial band.

Under the guidance of Andrew McKenzie, The Hafler Trio (or H3O) have released dozens of fantastic, powerful industrial albums such as Intoutof, Kill the King, Masturbatorium, and his most famous and most ripped off CD, Fuck.

Twelve years ago, McKenzie moved to Iceland, and went on hiatus and concentrated on his computer programming work. These days, he's more musically industrious than ever, with almost a dozen projects released or in the pipe for 2004.

One of his most recent projects, Normally is a double cd featuring McKenzie's voice of Einstürzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld. It's a violently challenging album. McKenzie's has created soundscapes from Bargeld's voice as complex and dissonant as any record by Bargeld's band.

Recently, McKenzie was diagnosed with Hepatitis-B and Auto-Immune Hepatitis. Both diseases are deadly and similar to HIV in that they can be controlled with a daily regimen of expensive anti-viral medicine. However, the socialist government of Iceland is refusing to pay for McKenzie's health care.

Never mind that McKenzie has lived in Iceland for 12 years, and has an Icelandic daughter. Never mind the taxes he's paid into the socialist system. In the eyes of the government McKenzie is an unwanted foreigner with a communicable disease.

McKenzie cannot afford the anti-Hepatitis drugs without state assistance. As an English citizen, he cannot legally work in Iceland. Moving back to the UK would mean years of waiting before being readmitted into the English health care system. It would also mean abandoning his campaign for social justice in Iceland.

To add insult to injury, Hafler Trio's former label Touch Records claim that none of the publishing for the Hafler Trio made any profit, and that they don't owe McKenzie any money.

So, unable to work, and unable profit from his previous work, McKenzie stays in Iceland and raises money however he can. He makes music, performs music and lectures when he can. All of these activities are difficult now with his illnesses. McKenzie needs days of rest between any performances, lectures or travel.

McKenzie and I conversed via e-mail in February and March 2004. This "interview" is a mix of a few question and answer e-mails sent within a week's time.

IN: Would you characterize Normally as a collaboration yourself and Blixa Bargeld?
H3O:Not in the terms that one normally associates with such a word, already loaded with meaning from misuse for many years. In the true sense that I always use it: perhaps. Whether Mr. Bargeld would agree to this, I don't know.

IN: Will your upcoming project with Michael Gira be a similar project? Will it be more or less of a collaboration than Normally was?
H3O: Insofar as the technical arrangements, it will be similar, although structurally and thematically, not at all.

IN: When did you first meet Bargeld?
H3O: I never have. But I will in about three days when I start on doing some support appearances. This is really a reversal of the normal process, but it does reflect present tendencies to a certain degree. Plus it highlights some of those that are currently in either a state of either revival or resurrection. Or zombification. Take your pick.

IN: Was the process of creating loops from Bargeld's voice a lengthy one?
H3O: Loops? No. There are hardly any of those anyway.

IN: Really? Hardly any loops at all?
H3O: Correct.

IN: Was it fairly clear what parts of his voice you wanted to use? Or was there some trial and error involved?
H3O: There was the working to a specific plan, which while having a goal or aim, did not anticipate exactly the final result of any of the tributary paths that the process veered off at times into. Which is to say: it was alive, in the sense that it had consciousness, and could react to its environment, and adapt to change. If the end result was pre-ordained, there would have been little point in doing it.

IN: You once said something along the lines that music is a poor substitute for children. That while you're creating music, the work is full of potential and adapts, changes and improves. But once the music is released, it becomes static. Have you ever wanted to hang onto an album indefinitely to keep this from happening?
H30: No. There comes a time, a bit like with a child too, when you have to let go, otherwise the full development cannot happen.

IN: Could the music/work be released on an ongoing basis as it changes through time?
H3O: That has been tried, and it has shown to me, at least, that it's a bad idea. This of course is related to "generative music", which I think is totally sterile.

IN: I was skeptical of the claim that compressing Normally to MP3 would render the music ineffective. So, I tried ripping the first disc to an MP3, and apart from the sound quality being poorer, I did notice that there were definitely things missing from the MP3 that I heard on the cd. Could this technique be applied to other music, so it wouldn't be effective if ripped to MP3?
H3O: Most certainly. In fact, when I was working as a programmer, this was one of the things I worked on with an eye to using this commercially. To my knowledge, what I proposed at that time has not been implemented in any market as yet.

IN: Would you ever use MP3 as a format in its own right?
H3O: Highly unlikely.

IN: Are the limitations on the quality of the audio after compression your only concern with the format?
H3O: One of the main ones. But as is obvious to anyone that looks at anything that comes out under the h3o name, divorcing the elements that make up the package is simply worthless, and bordering on the idiotic. How many people would sit and watch a movie where the soundtrack had been removed? Or every 3rd minute [removed]? Or how many people would seriously consider that they were able to really see a painting if it were xeroxed and badly scanned, and then compressed losing millions of colors, then viewed on a screen covered in dust at 15 DPI and the size of a postage stamp? The releases are put together with the greatest possible care, and separating the elements makes nonsense of a very delicately and finely balanced mechanism. I am very sure that much audio material can survive this material intact. But mine simply does not.

IN: I've noticed that on Normally and on records like Hafler Trio Plays the Hafler Trio, that the volume of the work can vary wildly. A track can go from barely audible to screechingly loud within an instant, is this done to discourage passive listening?
H3O: It's done for a variety of reasons, different in each case. In each context, there is an underlying reason. It's not simplistic in that it can be applied like some sort of sauce.

IN: What would you consider ideal circumstances to listening to your work?
H3O: Willingness to work.

IN: Would you recommend that everyone should be vaccinated for hepatitis-B?
H3O: Absolutely not. The human body is a very finely tuned system that humans basically shouldn't be allowed to mess around with. That is the reason for almost all illnesses anyway. Cases are in addition, unique, from organism to organism. A blanket response to an "illness" results in many consequences which may in themselves be even more harmful.

IN: Is there a chance that in your particular case that your illnesses could go into remission?
H3O: Possibly. But the combination of Hepatitis B and Auto-Immune Hepatitis are hard to beat for a deadly combination.

IN: Will you need to take anti-Hepatitis medicine for the rest of your life?
H3O: I'm not getting any now, as I can't afford it.

IN: Is it possible that your illnesses will go into remission without anti-hepatitis medicine?
H3O: It's possible, I think.

IN: Are you taking any holistic forms of medicine?
H3O: No, [I] can't afford it.

IN: How are you fighting your illnesses?
H3O: I'm fighting it with what I can do, which isn't a lot.

IN: I think I read somewhere that you follow (or followed) a strict vegan diet?
H3O: : No. I was macrobiotic for many years, and would be again if, again, I could afford it, and had the conditions necessary. This is a long way off being possible.

IN: Has that affected your condition or treatment in any way? Is it or was it an issue at all with your doctors?
H3O: I don't see any doctors, and I'm not getting any treatment. I have been refused treatment on the grounds that I have no money and no insurance. I am not eligible for treatment for free in either the UK or in Iceland.

IN: So, would you only be eligible for health care from Iceland or the UK if your situation becomes life threatening? Or would they refuse you health care even then?
H3O: It IS life threatening, and I'm still not eligible. I would have to pay. And I can't.

IN: Are you bitter at the Icelandic government? Do you think that if you had moved to Norway instead of Iceland that you would still face the same denial of health care services?
H3O: I have even less right to be in Norway than in Iceland. I have a daughter in Iceland, but that still, according to the authorities, is not sufficient reason for granting me a residence permit there. Nor is being seriously ill, nor is having letters from many prominent Icelanders attesting to the many ways I have been involved to Iceland's great benefit in promoting and helping many Icelandic artists, as well as sharing resources and knowledge over a period of 12 years. This, for them counts for nothing.

IN: I brought up Norway as an attempt to dance around my real question, which is this: do you think that your treatment is typical of the "character" of the Icelandic people, and their attitude toward foreigners?
H3O: It's typical of a worldwide trend, as far as I'm able to ascertain...

IN: Is there an "island nation" mentality that the government is trying to enforce to your detriment? Do you blame the bureaucrats, or are they serving the wishes of the Icelandic people?
H3O: It's much more complex than that which you suggest, but it cannot be isolated as just Iceland. It is a complex set of pressures from all sides, internal as well as external. This is happening on a bureaucratic level as well as a personal one.

IN: Does your daughter or your daughter's mother also have hepatitis?
H3O: Thankfully, no.

IN: Is working on (or recording) Hafler Trio physically tiring in your condition?
H3O: Yes. But most things are, quite frankly.

IN: How has your illness affected your work with sound?
H3O: A complicated question. It is mostly operational in nature, being that I was divested of my job and the shares in the company I was a partner of. My illnesses were in fact used against me to serve as passageways for the greed of those that were in a position to take advantage of it.

Sonically? No. Intentionally, perhaps yes. I am certainly sharper, and more able to give larger parts of my attention to things I might have let take longer in the past.

IN: Could you briefly describe your difficulties with Touch records?
H3O: This is a very long story, and quite unpleasant, and would probably involve much that would feed various fires that would be best put out. In short, I have not received payments for publishing royalties, ever. Not a penny. It is in my view, and that of many others, that for all the works that were published by Touch Music (and even a cursory glance at the long list will show that this is not a trivial statement in itself) it is impossible for them not to have generated any money whatsoever. That the old titles, which are now assigned to, can generate money which that company can pick up, would seem to prove quite conclusively that any statements that Touch make on any subject event tangentially related to this one must be regarded with a great deal of suspicion.

Under normal circumstances my approach would be to simply ignore it. But in the situation that I am, I cannot afford to. Their actions are a direct act of aggression, and on top of this, the market in which I am consigned (mainly) to operate with regard of selling wares, is very limited. The more such children that piss in the swimming pool, the sooner it will be that no-one will be able to go in the water.

IN: You helped start that company, didn't you?
H3O: Indeed I did. But as is now common, the "friends" and "business" tricks, which take advantage of personal relationships in order to exploit rules and past experiences that have no bearing whatsoever in a business situation, have been played to the hilt. While at the same time, nothing has been done by any of the people involved with the company. It is well known that the company owes a great deal of its "status" and "goodwill" to the fact that it released records by myself. This would be very difficult to glean from their published information.

IN: Are you able to re-release any of the H3O back catalogue without Touch?
H3O: Yes. Apart from some that they are deliberately withholding master tapes and my artwork for, as well some that they have "lost" without any offer of recompense. Not even an apology.

IN: How is the job market in Iceland?
H3O: It's a closed market, where "outsiders" do not even get replied to when applying for jobs.

IN: Have you been able to find freelance work in Iceland?
H3O: Absolutely not.

IN: How can readers of Industrial Nation help you?
H3O: Well, I suppose in a number of ways. Some of these are detailed on the help h3o page of the website, but in the main, money is a great help — but the solution to this set of problems is regular income. That is, a job.

For more information about the Hafler Trio visit : http://www.brainwashed.com/h3o/
For information on how to help the Hafler Trio visit: http://www.brainwashed.com/h3o/helph3o.html