Golden Hammer

A fascinating collection in that it provides with a challenging listen. Expect no "entertainment" here. Also make sure to be armed with patience when diving into The Hafler Trio's daring, abstract world of no music. There's loads of sound but also it is a constant blank canvas to use your imagination, make a wild guess.

"The Golden Hammer" gathers most of The Hafler Trio's earlier EPs and albums, of which "A Thirsty Fish" partially suffered, in having to be reduced to a single CD (originally, a double LP with about 90 minutes of contents). Aside from the frustration of detecting what's what, judging from the playlist and how these are indexed on the discs, the chronological side to these 6 CDs also seems to be a bit of a mess - again, "A Thirsty Fish" to start with, released back in 1992 despite its catalogue number marking the 6th installment in the series. Scattered between 1992-94, "The Golden Hammer" was variously d at the time via The Grey Area's promotional leaflets, the titles to some of these ("All That Rises Must Converge" and "Walk Gently Through The Gates Of Joy") seem to be properly decided upon at the last minute. At some point, Soleilmoon also took over some of these releases and put them out in the US, adding to the confusion if you're after the UK editions, because both Mute and Soleilmoon adopted the identical catalogue number of "KUT". Some editions feature occasional colour misprints on the very CD - like "Walk Gently Through The Gates Of Joy", using the same red/black/yellow colour system as "Bang! An Open Letter".

Also if you haven't noticed by now (although this tiny little "secret" has been revealed at some point in the past), the six foldout booklets form an interesting "poster" collage. In recent years, most of The H3O's Touch catalogue has been re-released on Korm Plastics.

Boxed in two heavy paper sleeves with paper bands naming the group.