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KILL THE KING
The first re-issue in the Hafler Trio re-issue series is Kill
The King.
"Saved from bit-rot, ergonomically enhanced, notated,
commented, added and lubricated to perfection, Kill The King
rises again to slip inside systems and penetrate that which used
to be called Mind with an effortless bobbing and to-ing and fro-ing,
which connects the other centres with a loud "PING!",
leaving all joyous and fruitful. believing is seeing. experience
the thrill of several lifetimes and invest in your grandchildren's
uncertain future." — the hafler trio
Originally released in 1991 by Staalplaat and Silent Records,
this is one of the most sought after classic Hafler Trio releases,
the original being unavailable for a decade.
Price is 18 euros including postage worldwide. All direct
orders made with paypal (to: info [at] kormplastics [dot] nl)
will receive a free of charge pin, related to Kill The King.
reviews:
HAFLER TRIO
KILL THE KING
KORM PLASTICS KPKTK CD
Its a dangerous proposition to take sound, image, word or anything
from The Hafler Trio at face value, since their history is dotted
with deliberate misinformation, sleights of hand and
gnostic trickery. A particularly overt example is on their debut
Bang! An Open Letter, on which they perpetuated a myth about
two acoustic engineers Robert Spridgeon and Dr Edward Moolenbeek,
who had supposedly passed on a wealth of psychoacoustic research
for The Hafler Trio to continue. This turns out to be fiction,
but the tall tale was a good one, especially with the album's
masterful cut 'n' paste collage as an accompaniment.
By the late 80's, the original partnership between Andrew McKenzie
and Chris Watson came to an end, with McKenzie continuing to
hold the reigns of the Trio. McKenzie's strategies and philosophies
have become more and more complex over the years. On occasion,
he appears to reveal those strategies in a supposed act of benevolence
towards us poor mortals who foolishly seek to find a meaning,
an experience, something within his work.
13 years after its initial release, which was marred with digital
bit rot, Kill The King remains a brilliant if baffling production.
It opens with a two minute reading from an unknown woman with
a Germanic accent. She speaks in a deliberate monotone about
the quality of her voice. Yet when she utters the statement "It
will not be raised or lowered, no matter what happens",
inflections carry her voice up and down and undermine the syntax
of that statement. Coupled with McKenzie's gritty treatment of
the voice, this brief introduction acts as a template for the
remainder of the album in which obvious semiological guides are
no longer valid, yet an acute intellect is still at work.
In this context Kill The King reads as a unique and incredibly
personal form of communication through the physicality of sound,
which holds its own peculiar set of of nuances and neologisms.
During the ensuing 70 minutes, McKenzie in occasional collaboration
with John Duncan and Zbigniew Karkowski, recontextualises a huge
wealth of synthetic and found sounds to form the basis of this
aural language. Here, data crunched drones are suspended within
an electrified ether, the noxious rasp of a modem nestles against
corroded pulsations, and oxygenated whispers reverberate through
and eerie ambience. These passages do not impart any specifics
- instead, they are selections from a serial taxonomy of moods
and emotions, in particular awe, horror, tension and fear. Kill
The King succeeds in pulling together all of these grandiose
ideas and ridiculous concepts by the sheer force of their conviction
that sound has a profound ability to affect the human body and
spirit.
(Jim Haynes in THE WIRE 242 APRIL 2004)
Andrew McKenzie und Frans de Waard bescheren
uns die Wiederveröffentlichung des THE HAFLER TRIO-Klassikers
Kill The King (GOD / Korm Plastics, kp §1, 3), der ursprünglich
1991 bei Silent / Staalplaat herausgekommen war. Die ursprünglich
schon aufwendig designte Verpackung im 13,5 x 16 cm-Format mit
dem Coverfoto, das mit Hexensabbat- und Satyricon-Assoziationen
spielt, wurde wiederverwendet und gleichzeitig überboten
durch eine Zusatzhülle aus Butterbrotpapier, bedruckt mit
einem weiteren Haflertext. Zeigt sich gerade auch in diesen mit
der Heimwerkerweisheit >if you can't fix it with a hammer,
you know it must be broken< eingeleiteten, irritierend schwer
verständlichen Texten der genuine Konzeptkünstler in
McKenzie, so ruft die, mit einiger Unterstützung von Adi
Newton (ClockDVA, Anti-Group), Zbigniew Karkowski, Annie Sprinkle
und John Duncan kreierte Klangwelt in Erinnerung, dass er - auch
-, zusammen mit verwandten Postindustrialisten wie Organum, Lustmord,
Lull, Maeror Tri, Mimir, zu den Pionieren dröhnminimalistischer
Mikrophonien zu zählen ist. Gipfel der Irritation war und
ist, dass weder Text noch Klangbild konkreten Stoff liefern für
einen zwischen den Zeilen suggerierten Zusammenhang mit, wahlweise,
Scientology-Esoterik oder Sexualmagie. Wenn Rätselhaftigkeit
eine der wesentlichsten Eigenschaften von Musik ist, dann darf
man H3O zu den Künstlern rechnen, die sich mit ihrem gesamten
vre dieser Qualität verschrieben haben. Wenig Zweifel besteht
nur dahingehend, dass McKenzies Soundscapes keine geographischen
'Landschaften' nachformten, sondern, als 'Dreamscapes', sich
psychonautisch in Weltinnenräume, in die feinen Verästelungen
von Pneuma und Soma, hinein tasteten - "to slip inside systems
and penetrate that which used to be called Mind with an effortless
bobbing and to-ing and fro-ing." Über die Haut, durch
das Ohr, kommt es zu psychophysischen Rückkopplungen, indem
der H3O-Noise sich suggestiv einspeist und gleichzeitig Verschüttetes,
Ungewecktes, hervor kitzelt. Im geflügelten GOD-Signet charakterisiert
sich McKenzie als Hermes, als Go-Between und Trickster-Gott.
Die Rolle als Psychopompos scheint ihm zu gefallen wie keine
andere.
Review from: Bad Alchemy #43
THE HAFLER TRIO - KILL THE KING (CD by Korm
Plastics)
Being one of the heroes of new music, The Hafler Trio have had
an extensive influence on the work of many others, and not only
because Mr. McKenzie has chosen to share his experience through
workshops. The music itself has done that, more than anything
else. 'Kill the king' is a rerelease, remastered for this CD.
The remastering has in fact been so thorough that we can now
enjoy this work for the full 73 minutes. There is one single
track on the disc, but there are certainly parts to be distinguished
(besides that, the separate titles suggest seven parts). The
music is quite what one would expect from earlier Hafler Trio
work: drony ambiences with overlays of other sounds and rythmic
elements here and there, most of these based on loops. What is
pretty amazing is the extensive use of FX, something I seem to
have forgotten in the past years, but is absolutely worth catching
up on again. One big advantage of this process is the fact that
the origins of the sound material vanish, leaving the listener
with only a more or less abstract result. The development of
the parts is rather slow, on the verge of becoming ambient, but
the timing is just right to escape this. So the music is doing
the right thing. As with all Hafler Trio releases, this one comes
in a very special cover with a booklet. Normally I don't spend
a great deal of attention on this, but in this case I will have
to make an exception. The booklet is black with white text, but
covered in half transparent paper, also with text, also half
transparent. I will not even begin to talk about the text, but
the result of the white text on the black paper is almost identical
to the one on the cover: after a while everything starts to shimmer
and fade away! This hallucinatory effect adds to the music, so
cover and content become quite entangled. Which is very well
done of course! The text also adds to this, by the way. A must
for every Hafler Trio fan (and all who are not, but simply like
good music and a nice cover). (MR)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl
review from Vital Weekly #405
THE HAFLER TRIO: Kill The King
Korm Plastics | CD
With its dust jacket of translucent paper completely covered
in barely-decipherable text, the long-awaited reissue of The
Hafler Trio's Kill The King is an art-object seeming even more
obfuscated and austere than ever. Fully remastered (the first
pressing, issued by Staalplaat and Silent Records in 1991, reportedly
had its share of problems), this release marks the first in what
promises to be a very impressive series of reissues from Korm
Plastics, resuscitating long-unavailable-or-otherwise-concealed
recordings, texts, images, and various to-doings from The Hafler
Trio's back catalogue. And what a better place to start than
with Kill the King, one if his most imaginative and compelling
works (for this listener, at least), which may or may not consist
of seven parts, though there is a single track here, with short
pauses and breaks, shifts in direction. The Hafler Trio's sound
world is one which leaves the listener in wonder (with its soft
voices, drones, whispers, rhythmic noises, loops, more drones,
ambiences, unfathomable combinations), attempting to piece together
the pieces of a puzzle, discern the sources in abstract, otherworldly
sounds, or, as a reader of the texts that accompany these recordings,
to assemble meaning from the perplexing formulations, flashes
of narrative, the symbols of transformation. We may not fully
understand all of what is being revealed here, with the Hafler
Trio one always has the sense that there is something much larger
at work, but the experiences are always unique, challenging,
and unforgettable. [Richard di Santo]
Incursion 075 (http://www.incursion.org)
The Hafler Trio
Kill The King
(Korm Plastics)
Net nu Andrew McKenzie tegen de klok schijnt te racen met een
niet aflatende stroom nieuw materiaal, doet het label van Frans
de Waard lekker tegendraads met een ambitieus programma van heruitgaven
van niet meer verkrijgbare cd,s. Kill The King, werd oorspronkelijk
in 1991 uitgebracht door Staalplaat/Silent en geldt als één
van de betere werkstukken van de Dreunmeester. De meer dan tien
jaar oude mix van vervormde stemmetjes, bromtonen, watereffecten,
pulserende elektronica en hartslagdrums blijft ook in het licht
van de hedendaagse dreunscène stevig overeind. De verpakking
eert de H3O esthetiek: een overmaatse portefeuille plus boekje
(met wijsheden als If You Can,t Fix It With A Hammer You Know
It Must Be Broken, en nieuw artwork) dat half verscholen zit
achter calqueerpapier. Kill The King, is essentieel voer voor
drone aficionado,s die nu al uitkijken naar de digitale wedergeboorte
van Ignotum Per Ignotius, en Kuklos. From: Gonzo Circus 61
The Hafler Trio - Kill the King CD
The Hafler Trio - The Sea Org CD
An elaboration on the work of the Hafler Trio has become part
of many reviewers, agenda, which can be said to be due to the
vast amount of Hafler Trio releases that have recently seen the
light of day, and, if one wills, the quality these titles display.
The Hafler Trio consisted of several people, but primarily Andrew
McKenzie, who solely maintains the effort these days. Korm Plastics
has re-released two old Hafler Trio titles, so far that is, since
more seem to be on the way in the more or less immediate future.
At least that,s what their website tells us. "Kill the King"
was the first re-release to appear on this Dutch label, after
which "the Sea Org" was released. [...] "Kill
the King" starts with a voice reading a (programmatic?)
text that eloquently appropriates the atmosphere for what is
to follow. After starting quite elegantly, thick and heavy drones
bombard their way into your field of perception. There is no
alternative but to succumb to their relentless insistence. The
CD consists of 7 parts that are presented as one piece, which
is a 73 minute long track. It pretty much bounces back and forth
between relatively more quiet parts, and dense drones. A long,
disturbing, and overwhelming experience is thus presented. Occasionally,
the sound of voices emerges, voices that are like tiny meteorites
in a gigantic valley of dread. I try to avoid adjectives like
"eerie to do the most justice to the amount of constraint
this recording is able to deliver - I cannot but feel a little
claustrophobic when listening to the CD due to its blunt persistence.
The Hafler Trio continues to impress with their ability to create
atmosphere through sound on Korm Plastics´ second re-release,
"The Sea Org". Whereas "Kill the King" most
appropriate adjective perhaps was "overwhelming", "The
Sea Org" operates on a different scale, delivering a far
more fragmented narrative with a microscopic precision, through
which the seven tracks on this CD gain a far more transient and
gas-like character. This is no slumber music however, the use
of sound is very figurative, building a curious atmosphere that
emerges from the parts that are carefully pieced together. Many
things may be vaguely recognized, but the resemblance is vague
at best, we can only keep on pondering and wandering. The aforementioned
fragmented character of the recordings makes it difficult to
pin down one certain designated narrative or characterisation.
The ear for detail that is displayed in these recordings is reason
enough to repeatedly listen to this CD. Sometimes I feel like
I can continually come back to this album, that I can keep on
drawing from it. Its elusive nature is very tricky in that there,s
always something left to be discovered, which makes regurgitation
not only worthwhile, but even necessary.
(Phospor 114)
The Hafler Trio - Kill The King (Kormplastics)
Das ist nicht nur eine CD, sondern eine kleines, kunstvolles
Buch mit Texten. Denn Korm Plastics möchten dieses Re-Release
der ´91 erschienenen Platte feiern. Hafler Trio sind ja
ziemlich produktiv zur Zeit, aber schon damals kamen sie mit
randvollen CD von Soundscapes der dunkel ambienten Art, voller
Fieldrecordings, strangen Stimmen, stürmisch wie Regen prasselnden
Soundeffekten, die sich von dem, was sie heute machen in Stimmung
und Dunkelheit unterscheiden.
http://www.kormplastics.nl
bleed ···· (De:Bug)
THE HAFLER TRIO Kill the King CD (Korm Plastics, NL, 2003)
The first release in a new series of reissues (this one originally
out in 1990), McKenzie here demonstrates perfectly how 73+ minutes
can be maximised to a breathtaking degree by panoramic ooze a
million worlds away from today's mostly meaningless pretenders.
Over the course of the one, segmented piece which fills this
release folds of carefully hewn voice stutters give way to space-breeze
textures, frozen static dunes and a mesmer-current generally
so strong it's hard to resist getting pulled under. Complete
with the high standard of packaging now expected of a H3O release,
including a 20pp booklet worthy of a little gallery space in
itself, Kill the King won't disappoint on any level and I'd personally
defy anybody but the most brainless to say otherwise. (RJ)
(Adverse Effect Volume 3, number 2)
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