Despite the Fire-fighters' Efforts ... is the second and last album by Aparis, the trio of the brothers Markus Stockhausen and Simon Stockhausen with the drummer Jo Thönes. Released by ECM in April 1993, it sets trumpet and flugelhorn inside a dense field of synthesizers, sequencers and electronic drums. The electronics weigh more here than on the trio's first record, and the improvised trumpet stays at the centre of seven long pieces.

Markus Stockhausen, born in 1957, is the son of the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. He worked closely with his father for some twenty-five years and was a soloist in his opera cycle Licht at La Scala and Covent Garden. In Aparis he plays trumpets and flugelhorn, Simon plays keyboards and soprano saxophone, and Thönes acoustic and electronic drums. The group's debut, Aparis, was recorded in August 1989 and issued by ECM in 1990 with Manfred Eicher as producer. This second album was made at Rainbow Studio in Oslo in July 1992 with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer, and the production is credited to the band itself. All seven pieces are joint compositions by the two brothers.

The thirteen-minute Sunrice opens the album over a sequencer pattern, a processed voice and cymbal drones, and builds to a passage of high-intensity drumming from Thönes. Welcome, the longest piece at over fourteen minutes, lays Simon's soprano saxophone over a relaxed groove before sirens and trumpet enter. Fire, at six minutes the shortest track, is the one that comes closest to jazz. The album closes with Hannibal, where Markus's melancholy trumpet rides over insistent, anthemic drums.

Writing on ECM Reviews in 2012, Tyran Grillo noted that Markus's trumpet "lines swim eel-like in an even deeper ocean of electronics" than on the debut. He heard Fire as a piece that "recalls the classic strains of ECM's heyday, modish synth and all." The electronic emphasis set the group apart from most ECM jazz of the period. Markus Stockhausen later returned to the label with Kartā, a quartet with Arild Andersen, Patrice Héral and Terje Rypdal.

This is the CD edition, catalogue number ECM 1496, of the album first released in April 1993.