On the way home last night, I decided that I needed to pick up some Azure Ray and Dixie Chicks, and stopped in a local CD shop. The Azure Ray I wanted was easy enough to find, but I could not find the Dixie Chicks album I wanted. I crawled through the shop, looking for assorted curios: Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, Tom Waits' Rain Dogs, Merzbow {any that I don't already have}. No luck. So I started to think to myself, I should just order The Hafler Trio's normally.
It's rare to see any of the new Hafler Trio releases here.
But then, as I was getting ready to check out, there was ae3o, a release combining The Hafler Trio and Autechre. It's put out by Phonometography, who seem to be doing H3O releases exclusively at present. And doing an amazing job. ae3o comes in beautiful packaging: a hard textured outer envelope, which when opened reveals a hard cardboard inner envelope, covered in grey text. Inside the envelope are a pair of 3 inch CD's in 5 inch clear plastic, one each for ae3o and h3ae, accompanied by a small stack of abstract negative transparencies.
I haven't paid too much attention to Autechre, I must admit. But they deliver well on their disc. There are no rhythms here - more electronic drones and noises. The Hafler Trio touch into the quieter ambient style that is characterizing {generally} their modern sound, which remains subtle and complex, beautiful and terrifying.
There is apparently another Autechre / Hafler Trio release in the works. Hopefully this series will succeed in expanding concepts and expectations of the fans of each.