When I Dissolve

The power of a soundtrack is to not only support the film's narrative, but to open up spaces beyond the visible - to add layers of meaning and complexity that can easily unfold in sound.

"I like to think of the music as a sort of bog or swamp landscape that lies underneath the film's structure, all connected - sometimes you just see the surface and it can look very unassuming, until you dip your foot in. Then you dive down all the way, and there's a whole universe where you never reach the bottom. It's a mysterious, expanding, strange world and it's my job to decide how much of it we get to hear."

When I Dissolve collects the compositions Jana Irmert created for Henrike Meyer's auto-fictional hybrid documentary To Be an Extra. The film follows the filmmaker herself as she navigates the struggles of making her first feature length film while working as an extra on tv shows and film sets. From her perspective as an out-of-focus extra, she gains a new existential insight into the precarious life on the fringes of both the film industry and society.

Informed by the two artists' conversations about phenomena at the periphery of our existence like black holes, breathing rooms and body parts that suddenly feel disconnected, ominous noises grow out of the silence into blooming synth-heavy montages.

Here, the score stands on its own, a journey to the edges of our multiple realities.

Highlighting the immersive and multi-layered character of the music, the release is additionally available in Dolby Atmos, mixed by Philipp Rumsch.