The Hafler Trio is actually Andrew McKenzie, whose post-industrial electro-acoustic music has been some of the most respected in the field since the mid-'80s. His sound project was begun with former Cabaret Voltaire member Christopher Watson as a meeting of drone textures and interesting acoustic environments (recorded by Watson, who left to work professionally as a sound engineer, returning to releases recently with natural location recordings on Touch). After Watson, McKenzie has worked with many others, including Clock DVA's Adi Newton on music for the tantric performances of Annie Sprinkle, which incorporated frequencies that she reported were very scary. Intoutof is a series of finely woven drone environments incorporating location recordings by Ward Phillips. The section titles imply some sort of alchemic process, with the grinding sounds of "Initiation" evolving into the brighter tones and birdsong of "Ascent," before the hard discords of "Purgatory No 1 & 2."

This cd is now back in print. For those of you with the original vinyl, you may want to buy the cd because KK Records reportedly mastered the album version at the wrong speed in order for it to fit.