Protection, The Hafler Trio

condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Poster included.

An oddity inside the Hafler Trio catalogue. Released 1 April 1987 on Touch (catalogue T33.6, slotted between The Sea Org and A Thirsty Fish), the record is credited to Protection rather than to the Hafler Trio proper, though it operates unmistakably inside Andrew M. McKenzie's project and its extended circle of guest collaborators.

Seven tracks arranged as two triptych-style suites. Side one ("Triptych") is made up of "The Blue Wind," "4 Doors," and "Painted Faces"; side two ("Bedroom Scene With Hooks") runs through "Bedroom Scene With Hooks," "Making Desperate Sign Language From The Funeral Pyre," "The Birthday," and "IPKR." Vocals on "4 Doors" and "The Birthday" are by Silverstar Amoeba, one of several near-mythical collaborators McKenzie worked with through the mid-Eighties.

The Touch catalogue of this period (The Sea Org, Brain Song, A Thirsty Fish, the Three Ways of Saying Two Netherlands Lectures, Redintegrate) is arguably the Hafler Trio at its most visually coherent, thanks to Jon Wozencroft's graphic design across the series. Protection belongs to that run. A cryptic, distinctly off-to-the-side document of the most conceptually restless phase of McKenzie's output, issued in the same imprint's consistent aesthetic and worth sourcing on original vinyl.