In an era when so little is left to the imagination, there’s something especially seductive about an artist we can only wonder about. Even among the many “anonymous” outfits in electronic music, few shun the corporeal world as thoroughly as the German producer we first knew as Traumprinz and Prince of Denmark, and who, over the past decade and change, has released music as DJ Metatron, DJ Healer, Prime Minister of Doom, Golden Baby, the Phantasy, and now irini. His real name has never been publicly known. His live appearances were always rare, and seem to have stopped completely after a brief DJ set at Berghain on Christmas Day in 2015.
In his only interviews—short Q&As that came with podcast mixes he did for Resident Advisor and Little White Earbuds—he stressed the importance of the imaginary realm, and indulged in a bit. He claimed one of his Giegling mixes was made for a girl he fell in love with (“we’ve been together ever since”). His RA mix, he said, was the tape of a radio show he’d done 20 years earlier for Sender Geibel, a “metaphysical radio channel,” according to his SoundCloud, “broadcasting all around the parallel world—part of planet uterus.” He explained the concept of the Sehnsuchtsort: “a desirable place that only exists in our fantasy… a way to keep away the sometimes unpleasant side of reality and to empower creativity, emotion, irrational behaviour and imperfection.” The artist portrait for his RA podcast showed a boy maybe seven or eight years old, the age when nothing is more natural than playing pretend, daydreaming adventures starring some alter ego you choose for yourself.
That’s basically what this artist does with his music, and never more explicitly than on lost in dreams. Over 37 tracks and a runtime of more than three hours, this tome of an LP feels like both a transmission from his proverbial Sehnsuchtsort and a ride through it, especially if you take it in one sitting. Charting a course through dub techno, deep house, trance, ambient, and rave, flecked with lovely non-sequiturs of drum’n’bass and breakbeat, the record is by turns tongue in cheek and totally sincere, imperfect and exquisite, sometimes all at once. Even with its occasionally flat moments, it competes with Prince of Denmark’s 8 and DJ Healer’s Nothing 2 Loose as the best LP in his sprawling discography.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
