Before becoming Troum, Stefan Knappe and Martin Git, plus Helge Siehl, operated as Maëror Tri, releasing a slew of strange, dark albums in limited runs on cassette. Ambient Dreams first appeared in 1990 in an edition of only 18 copies but finally gets a wider release in its CD debut. Using only natural sound sources without electronics, the group crafts an eerie and gripping recording that still sounds startlingly fresh today.
Often booming cavernously, the music is neither menacing nor comforting. Instead, it is a constant shuffling of the feet, as if being led blindfolded through a new town via its alleys and underpasses. Sounds that are heard but subconsciously tuned out as a matter of everyday existence are instead drawn out and used for a sense of familiarity in otherwise unstable footing. The group draws from a wide palette of material to bring depth and nuance to each track to give a sense of place, even if that place is only imaginary.
Hints of trains and bells and muted voices on "Amputation" could be a disorienting walk down some city street. "Waves Without Gravitation" sounds like boiling vents and furnaces pulsing against each other under fluorescent lamps. "Window to the Absolute" is a chorus of echoing subway tunnels moments after a train has left, while the "Voices On My Skin" sing like hazy machinery. Most of the songs are more atmosphere than emotion, but "Sanctified Frequencies" comes closest with an undulating sheen of harmonics that forms a melodic shimmer, like a blissful audio version of northern lights.
Enhanced by Jesse Peper's beautifully bizarre cover, Ambient Dreams is a rich and memorable album. Instead of being cleverly clinical or analytical, this music is alive and breathing, pulsing with a near-mystical quality and imbued with a replenishing vitality.
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