maeror tri, article in english

MAEROR TRI's archaic music

"Multiple Personality Disorder" (Korm Plastic, 1993)
"Mort Aux Vaches: Hypnos/Trance" (Staalplaat, 1996)

The very best are recordings of sounds within nature which can be detected and thus heard by the human ear. Such sounds seem to be deeply rooted in a universal language which can be understood by the entire spectrum of living beings. Natural sounds have the advantage of being the closest to music which shows a certain kind of unity (Psychologie Heute, 6/94)

Evolution of our mind... And sound, as a way of development and evolution, helping listener to make an evolution of his own consciousness, and, simultaneously, a breakout into unconscious - imaginative, visual, observed on the deepest levels. "We believe in changing consciousness through the music - our music means communication, and we emerge as its reflecting way".

STEFAN KNAPPE: About the meaning of Maeror Tri : Well "maeror" is latin and means GRIEF, but also TO BE ABSORBED. "Maeror tri" is grammatically wrong, but it sounded better than the right version, for us it was something like "the absorbed three", "the suspended three", although through the meaning of GRIEF it is clear that this emotions have their basis on sadness and despair.

The atmospheric aesthetics of MAEROR TRI started in Germany in the april of 1988. Using their own sound sources, during a period of 1988-1992 they have released some 7 albums on different cassette labels; part of the early material, now forever lost, was later used on their album "Meditamentum" and compilations "Ultime Time" and "Ambiguitas". Using industrial music in the unusual ambient key, spherical objects and claustrophobia, in 1993 they have released material, recorded at a period from january till july of 1991, on their debut CD being the first in the right before started on Staalplaat series - "Korm Plastic", with excess of borders of mind being central theme for the album "Multiple Personality Disorder"; "express the four basic characters which appear nearly to all MPR-patients that known as... the most extreme form of schizophrenia". In the deep study of absolutely different frontier conditions of the mind through the music and confrontation with extreme forms of disease, the album presented a certain gloomy anatomical temple, closed on isolationism, industrial meditation and droning underground (subterranean) sounds on higher levels of utopian consciousness. Four parts of "MPD" - "the Administrator", "the Anaesthetizer", "the Revenger" and "the Protector" - presented an internal intuitive approach to subconsciousness, where the balance of existance was changing by intoxication and sinking into the world of subreality, getting through selfdestruction, hidden psychic mechanisms and operated pulses, reaching euphoria of safety at the end.

Hypnotising walls of sound drone you to a sick of industrial meditation. Unconsciousness in virtual spaces of silence, mental metaphysical drones and dark-noisy resonances were continued on the following album "Meditamentum", which included the material of their earlier experiments from the first six tape albums by Maeror Tri. Transcedental, highly hypnotising and meditating, evolving on our eyes, "concrete" sounding of their following works - such as their splendid "Myein", and released by that time "Mystagogus/Ousia" and "Physis/Phyein" singles - reminded more of a powerful orchestral sound, deeply drowned in reverberation.

"... this mansize slab of ground zero Ambient hints (aptly) at cancealment and secrecy and shadow and exclusion, the sweep of sandstorms around silos and the rumble of underground detonations, to the extent that even the tentative melodic phrases and halfheard rhythmic patterns which start to appear in track two assume a threatening aspect. Stylish and sumptuous, yes, but beware: with just three tracks in a patience-testing 74 minutes,this is strictly buff stuff for only the most monomaniacal minimalist" (The Wire, UK)

Following the way paved earlier by such legends as Illusion of Safety, Hafler Trio, PGR, using simultaneously the poles of mild guitar tones of industrial music - bright and light notwithstanding the nature, and rough severe ambient with absolutely heavy severe machine rhythmic scapes and guitar droning, obtruding possessions of the dark mind, Maeror Tri, harmonious and perfect, continued their study of influence of sound and its effect on the human perception, as a leading purpose of todays experimental music, formed by the leader of project Steffan Knappe in his manifesto "Archaic music" on the pages of american industrial magazine "Audio Drudge" in 1995: "last years nor one determination of any musical style did not dispense with the sector "industrial music" (sufficiently commercial and categorical now) or so called "noise-culture"... But where to refer a style, containing monotonous drones, gloomy thunderous peals of sounding, atmospheric relapses, repetitiveness, using "concrete" elements like the volcanic lava?.. In the cartridge clip with harmonious fragments and ambient sounding, there also possible some elements of so called death-industrial, and gothic and harsh-noise could be met "...

"If you are a newcomer to this: Maeror Tri produce music for the creative part of the brain. Hugh walls of droning sounds, processed guitar and gongs, never getting below the audible range (like other gong players sometimes did), drenched in a bath of effects. This music which similates you while working through your day. This music is like a drug: it will have a great impact on the mind. But in a much more positive way. Cherrisch the Maeror Tri's available. And don't be sad" (Frans de Waard, Vital # 99).

The last in discography of the quickly ascendant stars of industrial music became recorded in may 1996 live-sessions on dutch VPRO in the well-known program "De Avonden" (ex-"Grand Disco Classic"), released by Staalplaat in their "Mort Aux Vaches" series. Album carried a name "Hypnos/Trance" and as always in deep transformed reverberations, drowning in factory noises, mental spacelikeness, cascades of guitar droning "space rock" and shattering waves of progressing technology, this beautiful german trio showed as a possession the wholesome psychedelic suite in three parts, highly close by structure and sounding, as the most notorized trance repetitive music for dark mind. Guitar again, bouquets of tapes and samples, arsenal of hidden effects and prolongued rhythmic fluctuations...

STEFAN KNAPPE: ...As TROUM, we have decided not to give any interviews, simply because we think the musical language we try to create can't be 'translated into words, and it's not always useful to talk too much about things that can't be explained with words.

Having existed for more than 7 years, having created own small label Drone Records in Bremen and having left a thrilling catalogue of vinyl, CD's and a load of tapes, "dronesters" Maeror Tri split in the august (on other sources in november) 1996, with 2/3 of the line-up having continued the excursus into the unknown on behalf of the new project Troum, that already released a debut 10" on an american label Cohort Records.

"...Decesive for an understanding of archaic music can only be the way of active listening and experiencing! In fact, one could say that those who have kept their sensitity and have already been confronted with the mystery of archaic music will find a personal treasure within, without question. For myself, this style of music expresses a strong desire which seems to me, to be an oracle, a kind of mysticism which resides inside every individual being".

using the fragments from Stefan Knappe' article "Archaic music" (Audio Drudge # 6, US)

Multiple Personality Disorder (Korm Plastics, 1993)
Meditamentum (Raum 312, lmtd.500, 1995)
Myein (ND, 1995)
Language of Flames and Sound (Old Europa Cafe, lmtd.ed, 1996)
Hypnos/Trance ("Mort Aux Vaches", Staalplaat, lmtd.600, 1997)
Emitonal Engramm (Iris Light, 1997)

Sensuum Mendacia (Direction Music, 1991)
Subliminal Forces (Tonspur Tapes, 1991)
Mind-Reversal (Hithlahabuth, 1993)
Yearning for the Secret(s) of Nature (Fool's Paradise, 1993)
Archaic States (G.R.O.S.S., 1994)
Hypnobasia (-)
Ultime Time (Old Europa Cafe, compil.1990-91, 1994)
Ambiguitas (Lebensraum, lmtd.149, compil.1989-92, 1995)

Mystagogus/Ousia (lmtd., White Noise)
Physis/Phyein (lmtd.285, Fool's Paradise, 1994)
Saltatrix (Drone, 1995)
Exorbitant (Ant-Zen, 1996)

Real Underground 1 & 2 (Progressive Entertainment, 1994)
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Fool's Paradise, lmtd.448, 1994)
Invisible Domains (Malignant, 1995) Swallowed in Eternity (Corprolith, 1996)

CONTACT:
BARAKA [H] Stefan Knappe Gneisenaustrasse 56 28201 Bremen Germany Fax: + 49 421 5579405