The Hafler Trio - The Hafler Trio Play The Hafler Trio
This CD in particular is really strange to me. First thing to mention is that it contains this HUGE newspaper foldout that's also so old and thin I'm afraid of tearing it when I open it (dated October 12, 1942!). But, when you start to actually read it, it's using these huge words and talking about all this introspective nonsense, so I'm pretty sure McKenzie actually wrote this. More, it says the title of the record and the label at the bottom. So it is fake, but it looks insanely cool and that honestly adds a lot to it and to the package. Also, this package is super cool, it's like this oversized cardboard sleeve with real nice printing to it. Now granted, it's a LOT to read, and not much of it makes that much sense? It's comparing these theoretical "things" but isn't super specific on what it's actually comparing and uses so many strange words in such colorful ways that every sentence renders itself meaningless because of how obtuse it all is. From what I can gather, it seems to be an intentionally-difficult-to-read deconstruction of language and the process by which society normalizes previously strange actions, as well as discussing how 'truth' and 'facts' are relative to the ways of which our brains process information. There are so many metaphors to get this message across that the message is ultinmately confused, but I think that's sorta the point. In the way of masking itself as this all-important deconstruction of the mind, it's ultimately a meaningless slough of words about nothing. There are so many references to tourists looking in, or messages "unreadable to all but the most initiated" that the opaqueness of the literature is almost the message in of itself. I liked this reading, even if I found it hard to understand, it definitely adds to the package. There are however numerous spelling errors.

Now, to discuss the strangeness of the CD itself. First off, there are 11 tracks on this CD. It's an album, it has 11 tracks, ba-da-boom. There are 11 tracks listed on the inside cover, however the CD is entirely one track, with no track breaks included. So it's just this big 63 minute track that's divided into "sections", though those sections don't have the clearest seams, and I'm not sure if that's intentional of if that's just an Anckarström thing. I'm leaning towards it being an Anckarström thing, because some of their other albums clearly have this same problem. Now, another thing looking at Anckarström's Discogs page. SOME of these images are scans of the front of the CD themselves. Most of them however are not. Take a look at this picture. This is the same picture used on Discogs. If you look carefully, this is not a scan of the actual CD. It's a scan of a different one of their CDs, with brown color (pretty lazily, like in MS Paint or something) covering up whatever text was there and new generic font text layered over. Now, that is the correct font, so besides the glaring splotch of brown, it is a pretty faithful recreation. So where in the world did THIS image come from?? And why is it the completely wrong font?? Now here's another funny thing. If you've ever driven through Merzbow's Discogs page, you might've noticed this Antimonument CD marked as unofficial "due to the label not paying the artists". Doesn't that packaging look familiar? This was released on a label called Art Directe, also from Sweden who was active from 1991 to 1994 and whose releases are all now considered bootlegs for the same reason. So how in the world was Anckarström running alongside at the EXACT same time without any problems? There's no way these labels are ran by different people? McKenzie loved the label so much he released two albums through them? Anckarström Live was just released through Staalplaat for some reason? Even though this was 1993 and Anckarström was still active? Then THIS album, Nya Sverige - Nothing But The Truth, was later reissued on Room40, Lawrence English's label, and claims that the recording was made "whilst the pair were undertaking an exhaustive tour in 1991 alongside Hafler Trio and Zbigniew Karkowski," two other artists who appeared on the very short-run Anckarström label. And then there's Audiovision, a compilation which could've really been released as 6 separate albums, one of which has a title that's the longest title I've ever seen a real, physically pressed work have (so not including netlabel BS). Not at all the strangest inclusion out of the things I've mentioned, but I wanted to bring it up in case I never own the compilation and thus never get to talk about it.

So now I'm going into Audacity to try to divide this CD into 11 sections. I'm keeping it as one track on iTunes, but I want to know where the individual sections actually start and end for review purposes. As far as I can tell, here are the timestamps for each section:

1. "Sheet" Level Approach - 0:00
-- One of the most interesting segments here, a mass collage of various drones, sloshing sounds, buzzes, twinges, random beeps here and there. It's super alien and contains tons of incredibly interesting sounds. This is not to be confused with a hyper-dense John Oswald-style sound collage because the material here is still pretty quiet and subtle, as well as incredibly tense. It's much like being in an alien sewer. Up until the end where these extended, angelic beeps and ticking clocks come in. A part of me thinks there's some time stretching algorithm in the vein of paulstretch at play in some of these droning sounds (though this is 1993 so I'm not as sure). Lots of audacity / wave editor hallmarks in this release, but it was 1993 and certainly much much harder to accompish. Another interesting thing about this album, very much encompassed on this track, is that while only some sounds start suddenly, EVERYTHING always ends suddenly with very little fadeout.
2. Ben, Ruach, AB, Shaloshethem Yechad Thaubodo - 5:46
-- Intense pounding bass drum, like a heartbeat in a horror soundtrack. Faint cricket-like high pitches, pulsing in a similar pattern to the high pitches on Merzbow's Animal Magnetism, though extremely faint. Dark ambient and reverb resonance drone, though I think this time there's bowed cymbals in there which are cool, one of my favorite sounds. The bass drum progressively gets faster and the cymbals progressively louder until the track suddenly cuts off.
3. Assent - 11:31
-- More bowed cymbals (possibly only bowed / rubbed gong this time?) fade in (which makes me think I might've cut off the tracks at the wrong times, but oh well). More sounds timestretchy sounds, and some very alien spaceship sounds that I don't totally know how else to describe. Interesting enough track, I still like the first one the most.
4. Mesne (Kyss) - 14:23
-- Starts off with a longer period of near-silence that when amplified reveals itself to be a sample of some old record. Or possibly tape since I can't hear any crackle. This could also be evidenced by the very audible click proceeding it. Then appears to be a field recording of an office (obvious telephone ring legible when amplified) and some wind chimes. I think it might be an entirely unedited field recording until 17:08 when a relatively loud and obviously synthetic knock occurs. From there, some absolutely terrifying wails begin to fade in. Possibly woodwinds from another room. They're hard to hear as per usual and it's not clear whether they're human in origin. At the end, a dark ambient drone fades in and then, by far the loudest moment on the album, grows to the point of severely clipping, only to be suddenly cut off.
5. Of the Building of Vibrations by Forms - 20:35
-- Electronic, computerly glitches and pulses and phasers and lots of fun sounds more in line with what I usually listen to, this track is great. Short though.
6. Before "3 - 23:28
-- Big dark ambient drone with different things going on in each ear. In the left, a tense, orchestral and tonal low hum pulsing back and forth. In the right, what appears to be a train getting started. Whispers in the background. Tense and interesting.
7. The Detatchment of Locational Sounds - 26:28
-- By far the most quiet track on the album. Near silence for four minutes. When amplified in Audacity, it seems to be yet another unedited field recording of probably McKenzie's home office. At the very end, a pretty loud and high pitch buzzing suddenly occurs. This is also my favorite noise on the album, though it only lasts a few seconds before being suddenly cut off, with a little glitch in the left ear.
8. Metanoia - 30:20
-- Probably the least interesting dark ambient drone on the album, kinda sounds like a highway from far away. Though there are these digital punch sounds inserted at fairly random points throughout it. Like other tracks, this track is a big crescendo from nothing that gets suddenly cut off at the end.
9. Up Like the Sun and Down Like a Pancake - 39:35
-- Long spoken word segment! Another thing that makes me think I might've cut tracks off at incorrect times because you would think based off titles that the next track is the spoken word one. Could also be an Anckarström issue, because I can't find any better times to cut these tracks off. The spoken word is kinda hard to hear because the bass is super heavy and so are the S sounds? I think it's supposed to be like some kind of self-hatred inner consciousness creature but the voice is too funny for any of the words to resonate. There are also some low drone sounds being slowly built upon throughout the speech, crescendoing at the very end, and with a series of explosive beeps, suddenly begins what I call the next track.
10. Extract from Exercises in Conjunction with the Emotional Responses Uncurred during a Performance of "Oath" - 46:34
-- Begins with this explosive timestretched sound that fades out to almost nothing and begins what'll be this track's dark ambient crescendo. Low rumbly sounds for a while, but then these wet, angelic drones come in that I really like and some more twinkly wind chime sounds. I quite like this one.
11. The Same Room, Left - 50:17
-- Hey, a beat! It's not like that IDM beat on the other one though, it's more of a Muslimgauze style tape loop thing, with some differentiation between the ears that makes it a bit more satisfying to listen to. And some dark ambient drones. It's a good track It's a good album, that's the album, I know I don't usually give these more "proper" style reviews for albums, and tbh I got pretty tired of writing track descriptions by like the fourth track, but hey, here's a little gift from me I guess since there's not really a way to legally listen to it other than purchasing it. Plus, there's a lot to say about it. One of the most brutally avant-garde albums in my collection. It's good, but I mean not something I would listen to *that* regularly. A lot of this album is your pretty standard dark ambient, a genre I find hard to get into because everything in it's so samey, though a bit more detailed. Hafler Trio is crazy inaccessible.

7/10