"After POD’s dark dub techno, DJ Metatron’s euphoric and melancholic breaks, DJ Healer’s softboi house and the Phantasy’s Balearic strains, what does the Irini alias offer up? The answer is: a bit of everything. And trance. A lot of trance."
Cast your mind back to September 2021. A summer that spelled the return of freedom, festivals, and music – after the socially-distanced, anxiety-inducing, bubble-mania of 2020 – was winding down, when the Planet Uterus Soundcloud page dropped 3+ hours of new material with the simple message – ‘i am irini’. Cue pandemonium.
As with most Planet Uterus related posts, the ‘mix’ of entirely new, unreleased, original material quickly spawned the usual flood of comments hailing what could forgivably be mistaken to be the second coming of Christ. Prince Of Denmark, Traumprinz, DJ Metatron, DJ Healer, Prime Minister Of Doom, The Phantasy, Golden Baby, whichever moniker you prefer, had announced his next project and alias – irini, a name that derives from the Greek word for “peace”, and the fanbase for this mysterious producer were whipping themselves into a predictable frenzy.
It’s no wonder, the year before had seen the release of The Phantay’s house-centric ‘Ibiza’ and ‘Ibiza Pt. II’, along with the trance-revival ‘Loops Of Infinity (A Rave Love Letter)’ – eight slabs of wax that flew off the cyber-shelves quicker than you could say ‘sharks’. So, naturally, the fans headed to the planet uterus website, hitting ‘Y’ day-after-day so as not to miss the inevitable physical release of ‘lost in dreams’.
But as those familiar with the ways of the prince know, one swallow does not make a summer, and a single SoundCloud dump does not (necessarily) make a physical (or, god forbid, digital) release, as evidenced by the beloved ‘planet lonely’ upload, or ‘Traumprinz b2b DJ Metatron – Live At Planet Uterus’. Was ‘lost in dreams’ just another of those seemingly unattainable titles?
Fast-forward 4 years or so, and a 3:22 clip of a space launch melting into some blissful ambient announced the physical (and digital?!) release of the album via a new Bandcamp page. Whilst some might consider €108 an eye-watering price for a one release, ‘lost in dreams’, as a 6×12, actually represents one of the lower-risk speculations in his wide-ranging repertoire.
His previous physical releases (the aforementioned Phantasy and DJ Metatron 4×12 packs) required a leap of faith in the absence of audio previews, and as for the only larger work he’s produced, Prince of Denmark’s ‘8’ (8×12), the €100 charged then is €130 in today’s world, a price made entirely justifiable based on the fact that if you want a copy now, you need a spare €1500 lying around.
So not only is €9 per side of wax pretty much par for the course in this day and age (you’re also getting a whopping 37 tracks compared to 23 on ‘8’, crossing our fingers that squeezing the album into 3 tracks per side doesn’t detract from the quality of the press), but this time around, we actually know what we’re buying…
And what exactly are we getting? After POD’s dark dub techno, DJ Metatron’s euphoric and melancholic breaks, DJ Healer’s softboi house and the Phantasy’s Balearic strains, what does the Irini alias offer up? The answer is: a bit of everything. And trance. A lot of trance.
The album follows the exact structure as the Soundcloud upload – so no surprises in the running order, meaning the our entrance to this labyrinthian dream is soundtracked by ‘untitled’, a low, dub-soaked techno track in the lineage of ‘8’, all shadows, echo and dense atmosphere.
An atmosphere immediately lifted on ‘the wisdom’, the restrained, understated groove straight cut straight from the Giegling playbook, and a house sound that, sadly, isn’t really revisited until the 33rd track of the album. ‘my father’ is the final non-ambient track we’re gifted, a fitting, melancholic last dance, awash with tape hiss and drifting, gorgeous pads.
But there’s a lot of music in between. Tracks 4 through 12 begin with some of the more ‘eyes-down-two-step’ kind of techno tracks, minimal and relentless, highlights including the moody, trippy ‘what did u just give me’ with its darkly kaleidoscopic synth line, huge claps and brooding low end.
The next tracks dance on that contentious precipice between techno and trance, minimal 4 to the floor kicks competing with those 90s synth lines for dominance, culminating in the dramatically orchestral pads and looping arpeggios that mark the firm arrival in trance territory on ‘too lost in dreams’.
After two trance-inspired ambient tracks, call-backs and evocations to some of the loops found on ‘Loops Of Infinity’, as the listener anticipates the continuation of this ‘latter-Metatron’ sound, the prince grabs the wheel and swerves sharply into a DJ Healer-esque breakbeat tune, before one of the most fun surprises dropped on any of his preceding albums.
Suddenly, we find ourselves being propelled along by a racing DnB beat, growling low-end and soaring pads all complementing each other beautifully, one of the best moments for showcasing Traumprinz’s talent for balancing dark and light. It’s eminently danceable, and includes Charlotte Gainsborough ASRMing over drum and bass, what’s not to like?
Our segue into the land of broken beat is interrupted by a delicate little ambient piece, as we enter what feels like the second half of the album proper. The thumpers return and this time we’re firmly rooted in the land of trance. In fact, at the risk of inciting a lynch mob, the next 5 or 6 tracks do threaten to tiptoe into cheese territory. By the time the natural peak arrives at the distilled euphoria of ‘as we go high’ (which in all fairness is probably one of the album’s highlights), a change of pace is required. Instead, we’re subject to another 20 minutes of arpeggiated synth leads and steady 4/4 rhythms.
Thankfully, sentimentality and sincerity are Irini’s whole schtick, and my own opinion doesn’t really matter compared to the gushing superlatives from thousands of Soundcloud users. The trance tracks are also mercifully minimal; looping melodies, driving kicks and interweaving pads build hypnotic soundscapes that never try too hard to capture the listeners attention, therefore resisting that ‘big-room cheese’ that often finds itself associated with the genre. On ‘open your soul (we need a better world now)’, we find this in action, a ten and a half minute long epic built around essentially just four key elements, each dropping in and out of the scene, all building to a slow, understated crescendo.
All that said, it’s after this track that Irini returns to a more techno-centric sound, and it’s here that the album really comes into its own. ‘concaved’ is a dancing, dubby techno track that could loop irresistibly for hours, and marks the return to a sound that remains masterfully poised between that shadowy POD sound and the levity of DJ Metatron or The Phantasy. ‘convexed’ inverts that light, dub-inflected airyness into a darker and more distorted version, ‘gb3am’ shining a light on some shimmering rides and ‘days of the cocoon’ emphasising more of the by now synonymous swirling, rising pads over a meaty kick.
Then there’s ‘dreamuniverse’. A simple, heavy kick pulses in the blackness, before a soft veil of subtly distorted keys gently cascade into the foreground. A single synth line grooves wistfully in the background, skittering hats push the pace along, and soft pads melt into vaporous vocal samples. It’s Traumprinz at his simple, emotive and beautiful best.
‘children of the sea’ steadies the soul again, before we get the counterpart to ‘ripleys dream’ on ‘dreamuniverse pt.ii’, all ringing, shimmering synth work and heavy percussion. The ambient dub piece ‘untitled’ then leads us back to the aforementioned house sound that was teased on track 2, before a final side of ambient pieces that gently wind down the party. Closer, ‘durch die nacht’ (through the night) is a regal, dramatic, distantly echoing final track, a fitting end to a long journey through the immense, emotionally-charged soundscape that is ‘lost in dreams’.
The Traumprinz project is admittedly one of the most fascinating in the electronic music scene. A combination of genuine anonymity, rejection of mainstream streaming platforms, relentless output across genres, and lack of fanfare upon releasing new music has ironically built a fanbase with the kind of fervent obsession that’s usually reserved for major festival headliners, your uncle’s favourite arena rock band, or Taylor Swift.
Because, whether you believe the hype or not, the sheer volume and quality of work produced is quite staggering, and the reticence for public adoration, in a world where everyone appears to be seeking constant validation, is genuinely refreshing. The way he releases his work is simple. A mix is uploaded, people listen, and then wait in hope for a vinyl release. Perhaps that will arrive after a few years, or perhaps it won’t. The virtue of patience, one that seems ever-increasingly rare in a culture of instant gratification, is a necessary requisite for following Traumprinz.
In other cases, a shopping cart link is added to the all possible worlds website, and punters can choose whether to place their faith and hard-earned cash in the producer. And each and every time, people do. And I think that’s because, now more than ever, it’s nice to put your faith in something and actually see it repaid.
‘Lost In Dreams’ is out now via All Possible Worlds. Order the vinyl box set and digital from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Untitled
2. The Wisdom
3. Athmos
4. When Somebody Makes You Sad
5. What Did U Just Give Me
6. Untitled
7. Leaving a Cult
8. The Higher
9. Tripping
10. Ripleys Dream
11. Too Lost in Dreams
12. Flashback With Dreams
13. Untitled
14. Flashback
15. Sweet Charlotte
16. A Future Bright
17. Afraid 2 Got Out in the Sun
18. Too Lost in Love
19. Eleanore
20. Golden Wave
21. As We Go High
22. Zentrancial
23. Untitled
24. Open Your Soul (We Need a Better World Now)
25. Concaved
26. Convexed
27. Gb3am
28. Days of the Cocoon
29. Dreamuniverse
30. Children of the Sea
31. Dreamuniverse Pt.ii
32. Untitled
33. My Father
34. Beyond the Gates
35. I Feel It, but Now It’s Gone
36. Dreamuniverse Pt.iii
37. Durch Die Nachttraum