The Hafler Trio
A house waiting for its master
Rossbin Rslp01
It came as something of a surprise from Rossbin, an excellent small, Italian label heretofore issuing a string of adventurous CDs: a 10” EP by The Hafler Trio, it’s milky, opalescent vinyl encased in an elegant black and silver sleeve festooned with elaborately scripted titles. The music is also rather different than anything Rossbin had previously released. The Hafler Trio (never more than a duo in reality and, I’m given to understand, likely just Andrew McKenzie by the time of this recording) creates three pieces consisting largely of drones, generally keeping within a rich, tonally centered area with a lavish helping of throbbing undertones. It’s impossible not to think of Eno while listening and, in truth, the music isn’t all that far away from some of the areas he was exploring in the mid to late 70s, but that doesn’t take away from the basic sensual pleasure felt. There’s just enough harshness spicing the mix to remove any new-agey qualms. The first track, “Everything that stops you becomes your idol”, is ten minutes of entwined pulsations, effortlessly wafting one downstream. The two shorter pieces (about six minutes each) provide more of a jolt, each containing something of an electric buzz, a slightly stinging tinge that moves the drone into something you might encounter standing alongside a generator. A flapping rhythm, sounding like a canvas gate forced open and closed by the sonic pressure, grows in presence before abruptly stopping and hurling the piece into a cavern of howling winds. An impressive track. It’s interesting to see Rossbin branch out into something like this, momentarily sidestepping the world of pure improv. For fans of the complex drone, it’s certainly a recording to check out.
"It’s impossible not to think of Eno while listening"
hehehehe....
Posted by: Jon Abbey at January 12, 2004 9:18 PMErm, yes Brian, and exactly which Eno were you referring to there...?!
Posted by: dan warburton at January 12, 2004 9:42 PMcome on, Dan, you should know virtually all music is either rooted in Eno or Fripp/Eno. that's Olewnick's First Theorem of Music Reviewing.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at January 12, 2004 10:12 PMyeah, the fripp/eno axis is striking again :)
... it's good to see rossbin releasing something like this. did any of you check out the recent HT on nextera and korm plastics? i also wonder if mckenzie plays improvised music as well (maybe under the hafler trio or another name)? i'd find it interesting to hear what this guy comes up with in a "classic" impro setup/situation...
Hey, hey, I can't help it if the guy's influence is becoming more and more pervasive on this scene! ;-) Dan, I was thinking of Eno circa "On Land" (and, yes, I found myself reluctant to make yet another reference but, hell, that's what I was hearing). The sort of undulating drone with several intertwining elements, at least one of which is warmly tonal (leaving open the door to excessively new-agey meanderings which, obviously, Eno wasn't immune to)--I'm not sure there are other clear antecedents that occupy quite that space. Dunno--if you guys have heard this (the 10-minute track) and think there's no Eno there, I'd be a bit surprised. I should say that I know almost nothing about McKenzie and have no idea whether he himself acknowledges such influence.
Posted by: Brian at January 13, 2004 5:59 AMthe truth is that i almost don't know anything by fripp and/or eno (shame on me!)... barely some crimson king (red, lizards) and classic eno like the airport record... but nothing they've done together... brian, what would you recommend as a starting point?
Posted by: tomas at January 13, 2004 8:52 AMas someone who is just now getting to know Eno hisownself, I can unreservedly recommend HERE COME THE WARM JETS and BEFORE AND AFTER SCIENCE. But I'm no Olewnick.
Posted by: al at January 13, 2004 8:59 AMFWIW, of the Eno / Fripp collaborations, I prefer EVENING STAR (the "culmination" album) to NO PUSSYFOOTING (the "setting-out" album).
Posted by: Joe at January 13, 2004 9:20 AMThough overall I prefer "No Pussyfooting", the second side of "Evening Star" ('An Index of Metals') is a pretty amazing piece imho, dark and desolate. As is often the case, it might depend what one heard first at what age and, therefore, what effect it had on one's development.
I think Eno's early pop phase contains some of the very best post-Beatles music ever created. "Here Come the Warm Jets", "Taking Tiger Mountain", "Before and After Science" and "Another Green World" all have some wonderful music. I'm a big fan of his almost concurrent ambient pieces, especially "Discreet Music" and "Music for Airports". I enjoy "On Land" quite a bit (also the collab with David Byrne, "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts") but after that, his output gets a bit spotty, sometimes pretty bad. Haven't picked up anything since..."Spanner", I think.
There's a beautiful video of his I saw at a museum in Amsterdam in 1983, I believe called "Mistaken Memories of Medieval New York".
Posted by: brian at January 13, 2004 9:41 AMthanks for the advices, guys! :)
i'll check some of those. curious to hear what they sound like. "evening star" sounds like something i could dig.
How 'bout those first 2 Roxy Music LP's?
Posted by: Joe at January 13, 2004 10:08 AMWhat does 'post-Beatles' music denote? Imply?
Posted by: Michael Schaumann at January 13, 2004 12:44 PMYes, I was wondering that too..
Thanks Jon for introducing me to the Olewnick First Theorem. FWIW (and this is where Jon can nip out and brew himself a cup of tea as he's heard / read it ALL before :-)), to get back to Hafler, this Rossbin 10" seems to be a sister release to his one on Crouton Music. There was an excellent interview with AM on the Crouton site, but it's not there anymore. I might well rerun it on Paris Transatatlantic shortly.
Yes Brian, instead of scouting round for other Eno records (seems like you've got the best one anyway), treat yourself to the early Hafler Trio Touch material. Tasty.
My own Fripp proclivities are well-known (but it'd be a thrill to get another superb Michael Schaumann one-liner in response to the top 40 haha). Ever hear "The League of Gentlemen"?
"post-beatles" has always been my shorthand for certain strain of pop music that, to my ears, has more basic affinity with the tunefulness and generally rosy quality of Beatles music than, say, the blues-edge of the Stones (not that both don't possess a bit of either). I can more or less imagine that, had they persisted, the Beatles could've produced something on the order of "Here Come the Warm Jets" (probably not as good), whereas it's outside the aesthetic purview of the Stones (even if they had continued down the path of "2000 Light Years from Home"!). That's all.
Posted by: brian at January 13, 2004 1:12 PMI'm not sure there's REALLY more blues in the Stones music. Theough I haven't actually counted, my guess is that, as a pct. of total output, there was a rough equivalence of blues-based tunes or sections of tunes in each group.
Of course the "post-Beatles" Lennon output jacked up that pct. for the mop-hairs, if that counts. My sense is that it's prolly just Jagger's vocal style that suggests otherwise.
Posted by: walto at January 13, 2004 1:51 PMI haven't heard the Rossbin (and probably won't, due to the lack of a turntable in my apartment), but my mind immediately recoils from comparing Eno to *anything* H30, especially the 80's material. If there's anything which so doggedly refuses the title of "ambient", it's that, sure they're enviornmental in a sense, but something like Inoutof or A Thirsty Fish consistently assert their presence in that enviornment, not allowing themselves to become part of the back ground at all.
Brian, if you want, I can burn you a little H30 primer, but the early stuff is available (for cheap) from the Mute store: http://www.mute.co.uk/store.htm . I believe they are technically out of print now, and eventually are being reissued and remastered again by Korm Plastics, http://www.kormplastics.nl/h3o.html
something tells me Brian would like Peter Gabriel's "Birdy" soundtrack if he heard it.
Walt, I'd rate the Stones waaaay ahead of the Beatles in terms of blues in their music. They cut their teeth on Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, et al., where the Beatles were far more influenced by R&B. Keith Richards blues licks are a dime a dozen. Same goes for Mick Taylor.
Posted by: al at January 14, 2004 3:10 PMI have a problem bringing up Eno in the Context of the Hafler Trio. Their work is a bit too close in time to attribute Eno as influencing H3o. The Hafler trio was one of the welcome alternative to Eno for many of us. Eno being a bit too clean and anaseptic. Works on the harmonic series is nothing that anyone can make claim to, but through the series of exploration Mc Kenzie has done using it, he refuses to allow himself to remain devotional towards it, forcing it ofter to an 'encounter with an other' , his own artistic intentionality
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