Biography
The 200 lurkers are a band-project based in Cologne, Germany that has won a small but dedicated following all over the world in the past three years. Essentially, the 200 lurkers consist of singer|songwriter Philipp Hofmann whose vision guides the project and who records much of the material in his home studio, supported by a host of collaborators.
The music of 200 lurkers combines guitar-based singer|songwriter tunes with judiciously applied samples. Much it has a wistful, melancholy feel, but is buoyed by an innate sense of whimsicality that is reflected in the delicate instrumentation and Hofmann's unique voice. Charmingly off-kilter melodies carry along lyrics full of exceptional imagery: with all manner of references to exploding beehives, celestial bodies, and birds with nacreous wings, they often depict a duality of the ordinary miraculousness of life wrapping around a pearl of bitterness and loss.
Musically, the 200 lurkers straddle several genres from twee pop to new folk to alt-country, though there are as many differences as similarities between these styles and the lurkers: Hofmann is fond of incorporating unconventional musical instruments or technologies (such as water glasses, children's toys, distorted recordings of his or his friends' voices, or archaic drum machines), and each song is of its own character and temperament, defying easy classification.
Even though their songs have not been actively promoted yet, the band has already won a considerable amount of attention from all over the world: the song "The Last Guest" was added to the download section of the music magazines junkmedia.org and finefinemusic.com; tracks were played by New York Radio Station WFDU-FM 89.1 as well as by various Campus and Internet Radios; an interview and performance was aired by the TV station Center TV, the video of the song "First Day Love" has received a 5-Star rating and more than 1000 hits on youtube, and director Jeffrey Wolfshohl chose the music of 200 lurkers for the soundtrack of his 2008 short film My Martyrdom In Every Case. The German magazine Intro has called the lurkers "music with depth and brains" and the Neue Westfälische says their "finely-wrought sound is unique in the local pop-scene."
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