Lifelike

Fela Lewis

Logo Magazine, Nov 2003

Lifelike has already been compared to the soundtrack to an old German silent film expounding on the glories of mythical Wagnerian Niebelung, and Irmler himself conceived it as a 'biography in sound'.

Both reference points are misleading, but not too far from the mark. Instead of Teutonic myths, Lifelike would be well served as the soundtrack to grainy, silent footage of the industrial awakening of the Eastern Bloc, and if this a biography, the smooth, transcendentally beautiful passages mark the life cycle of clouds, flowers and worker ants. Neither ambient nor truly experimental, Lifelike is more a journey through sound, at times it's almost not there, but it's always there, working in your subconscious. If ever a film director is looking to find his inner muse, he could do much worse than meditate in the world of Hans Joachim Irmler.

ref: Logo Magazine