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.
As usual with the artist known (for now) as irini, the music works neatly within its genre conventions, but, in its best moments, is imbued with a level of songcraft that’s rare in dance music. irini makes groovy club tracks DJs will want to get their hands on. He also, like the best traditional songwriters, knows how to lay down a melody or chord progression that resonates on a deep emotional frequency, as if conveying some ineffable aspect of the human experience that can’t be articulated any other way.
It’s this dual quality that long ago earned irini what could safely be called a cult following. “It’s like he’s on a permanent breakthrough DMT trip and operating at a totally different dimension or astral plane,” one fan said on Reddit. “Like heaven forgot to cut his spiritual umbilical cord and he’s bringing us the fire and light like he’s Prometheus or Lucifer or something.” His records, until now released only on vinyl, resell like rare sneakers. Twelve-inches can go for north of $150. Some fans balked at the $100 price tag of 8, an 8xLP box set, but nearly a decade later, there is only one mint-condition copy of it on Discogs, and it’s going for more than $1,700. This would make his music inaccessible if not for his habit of prolifically releasing free mixes on SoundCloud—usually a few per year, ranging in length from 30 minutes to three hours. Most of the music on them never gets released any other way, including fan favorites like Traumprinz’s remix of Olive’s “You’re Not Alone,” or any number of the countless downtempo gems on DJ Healer’s “planet lonely” mix from 2018.
Oddly, everything on lost in dreams first appeared on a mix of the same name in 2021. You might wonder why people would willingly part ways with their money to buy music they’ve already been given for free. This would underestimate the mystique that surrounds irini’s physical releases, which, resale value aside, are beautifully packaged and full of titillating Easter eggs for anyone who looks closely enough. Before the box set dropped, there was even the non-zero chance it might contain different music from the mix and the tracks on Bandcamp. After all, the music on 8 varied slightly from copy to copy, a mysterious flourish reflected in the title, which, when the record was held right side up, appeared not as an 8, but as an ouroboros—eight records, in other words, but infinite tracks. Maybe.
lost in dreams doesn’t pull any stunts on that level, but it remains richly enigmatic. The records come in a 6xLP box set upholstered in thatched canvas, inlaid with a rectangle of reflective, gold-colored foil bearing the portrait of the Holy Martyr Irene of Thessalonica. As one eagle-eyed SoundCloud listener noted, the original portrait has been modified slightly: “the key held by the virgin Irini (meaning peace) is not the typical symbolic key of the Orthodox Church, it is a modification reminiscent of the cross of LaVey, but you also see the number 8-0-1, which in numerology 801 = from the eternal (8), to the fertile void (0), to the creative beginning (1). It is literally the code of creation.” Worth noting that the price of the box set is €108 ($127), and the cross of LaVey, or Leviathan Cross, is the central symbol in the Church of Satan.
Musically, lost in dreams is a rich brew of the sounds that have until now been neatly compartmentalized among irini’s different alter egos. The flinty techno of Prince of Denmark and Prime Minister of Doom; the unabashed, pop-enhanced deep house of Traumprinz; the hymnal tones of DJ Metatron; the new-age aura of DJ Healer; the big-room house of the Phantasy—these sounds swirl together here more freely than they have in the past. And yet the prevailing aesthetic is something new: dreams, something conveyed in the hazy pads and sense of yearning that gust through each track.
For something so inspired and creatively generous, lost in dreams is a distinctly imperfect album, with relatively forgettable tracks sitting alongside some of the best irini’s ever done. Specifically, it’s the faux nostalgia that falls short here. A core part of irini’s fantasy world has always been imagined memories—“for example,” he told Little White Earbuds, “the imagination of taking part in one of the first abandoned warehouse raves in ’89 somewhere in England,” or “stumbling into a dark basement rave party in East Berlin in the early 90ies.” This has given rise to some of his best tracks, like Traumprinz’s blissed-out drum’n’bass tune “There Will Be XTC.” More recently, though, irini’s pastiche has been too on the nose. His hands-in-the-air house albums as the Phantasy, Ibiza and Ibiza Pt.II, felt like highly competent imitations rather than fresh takes on a classic sound.
Something similar could be said of the retro camp we get here. Whether it’s sending up ’90s techno (the spooky arps and titular vocal sample of “what did u just give me") or trance and progressive house (“as we go high,” “zentrancial,” “eleanore,” “too lost in love”), his throwbacks lack the strange twist that’s previously brought them to life.
lost in dreams is at its best when it sheds any hint of camp. We get this right out of the gate with the first of several untitled tracks, a deep and haunting techno groover with the solemn air of an opening ceremony. Roughly halfway through, there is “sweet charlotte,” a Reese bassline–powered drum’n’bass tune that’s as ethereal as it is romantic, thanks to a breathy dialog in French that could have been lifted from a nouvelle vague film. The album’s last three records lock into a groove of emotionally rich dub techno and ambient that shows irini at the top of his game. “concaved,” “convexed,” and “my father” reconnect to the rich vein of mystery that makes the album’s opening track so gripping. “dreamuniverse” and “dreamuniverse pt.ii” are proper goosebumps material, as beautiful and poetic and techno gets.
The ambient tracks on lost in dreams feel more like interludes than standalone pieces—rests amid the hours of thumping kick drums. An exception is “afraid 2 go out in the sun,” the record’s one example of irini’s unique flair for vocal samples. “In my life,” we hear a young person’s voice say, “I am afraid to go out in the sun now.” In isolation it could be a reference to the artist’s own reclusiveness, or, possibly, an expression of what the Germans call Weltschmerz—sadness and anxiety about the general state of the world. In fact, it’s a recording of the Canadian environmental activist Severn Cullis-Suzuki, aged 13, scolding the United Nations for their inaction on climate change at the Conference on Environment and Development in 1992.
The moment embodies the kind of beautifully uncynical perspective lost in dreams enshrines. irini seems dedicated to maintaining, against all odds, a valence of emotion and imagination most of us lose as we get older. With his music, he returns to that space, and invites us to join him there.
