Protoculture - Refractions

PKS, Oct 21, 2005

After several strong tracks on various compilations on Nano Records, Protoculture (N. Raubenheimer) from South Africa releases his debut album.

The first track is a beautiful relaxed down tempo track. Floating beautiful sounds going in a very chilled way. Great start on this album. This guy sure knows how to make some good chilled music too. Then we jump over to deep rolling morning trance in track 2. Pleasant for dancing at sunrise, but also for home listening. It sounds very much like new Israeli style, like Alien Project and Com.Pact artists. Track 3 follows the morning style, but here it sounds even more like Alien Project. A nice groovy track for early morning hours. Melodic and drifting. Track 4 is a bit darker and heavier. Still with a deep groove and some morning melodies after a few minutes. This music is somewhere between full on and progressive trance.

Track 5 starts banging from the first second. This one is even darker than track 4. More dark sounds, and less light melodies. One of my favourite tracks on this album. Track 6 starts nice and floating, before we get thrown into some groovy, rolling bass lines again. Now things are getting pretty full on. Again I get the feeling that it is inspired by Alien Project. The melody in this one might sound a bit too cheesy to some, but it sure can be pleasant too, in the morning. Track 7 has a nice trippy vibe, with groovy rolling bass lines. Then suddenly after a few minutes a female singer comes in and gives us a break. This singer reminds me of some Angel Tears releases. Track 8 goes over to more heavy, full on stuff. The most full on track on this album. Nice one. The last track on the album is very melodic. A drifting track with floating melodies all the way. This one might fall a bit too much over to the cheesy side for some.

This album is pretty good if you like the kind of morning trance the Israelis are making these days. Protoculture sure has become good at this style, so check it out!

Was the above review useful to you? Yes  No  (report)