ProtoU – Echoes Of The Future (CD Album – Cryo Chamber)
Genre/Influences: Dark-ambient, cinematographic.
Background/Info: Ukrainian artist Sasha Puzan is a very prolific musician. Since her debut album in 2015 together with her partner in crime Dronny Darko, she didn’t stop releasing new material. This is her fourth solo-work while she also released other albums together with Hilyard, Alphaxone plus the “Tomb Of Druids”-album together with other Cryo Chamber artists.
Content: “Echoes Of The Future” deals with the imaginary concept of leaving the earth. It’s an astral voyage towards an unknown destination, maybe a better world for our civilization. This theme has been remarkably adapted into a sonic voyage, which remains dark-like, but still characterized by a feeling of evasion and freedom. The tracks bring the listener into a progressive sonic storm, some of the final tracks being a little bit more hostile. Spoken samplings are accentuating the mystery around this obscure odyssey while enigmatic field recordings only reinforce the atmosphere.
+ + + : Especially the first part of the work reveals an intimate atmosphere and I even felt like an intruder entering into the secret world of the musician. But music is made to get shared with people and quite progressively I experienced the visual strength of this epos. Quite progressively the work moves into darker and overwhelming passages. “Hounds Of The Void” is the freakiest part of the work.
– – – : The single reproach I could figure is that Sasha Puzan is not exactly evolving in her approach. The influences and format remain the same-old, but at the other side she clearly has a very own sound DNA.
Conclusion: ProtoU remains one of the most delicate and subtle artists from the contemporary dark-ambient scene. This album is a real noticeable production illustrating and confirming her talent.
Best songs: “Hounds Of The Void”, “Vessels Of God”, “Transmissions”.
Rate: (8).
Artist: www.facebook.com/protoudrone
Label: www.cryochamberlabel.com / www.facebook.com/CryoChamber
About ProtoU
ProtoU is the solo dark ambient project of Ukrainian artist Sasha Puzan. She issued the joint album “Earth Songs” with Dronny Darko in 2015, before releasing her solo debut, “Lost Here”, on Cryo Chamber in 2016. A second solo album, “Khmaoch”, followed later that year, and Puzan discussed her approach to dark ambient music in a 2016 Click Interview with Side-Line. “Echoes Of The Future” became her fourth full solo album in 2018. ProtoU has since released the solo albums “Anomalies” (2020), “Memory Alpha” (2022) and “The Voice Of Serenity” (2024), alongside further joint albums with Dronny Darko, Alphaxone and Oljus.
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