Proving Ground – Through the Red Door

Releasedate: 22-04-2009;
By: Nina Mende

Proving Ground is the nihilistic brainchild of Paulo Kalra. Growing up in the quiet desperation of 1990’s Toronto Canada, Kalra was influenced by the stylistic self-expressions of the Seattle Grunge artists, coupled with Industrial musicians from Germany and the US. He recorded his first song in 1995 with dual cassette decks, a drum machine and guitar chords reminiscent of experimental Nirvana or Pearl Jam tracks. When Kalra was introduced to the possibilities of electronic composition, his ideas reached a new level and his raw energy was encoded into his first album, in 2000. Since then he has released two more, the latest being called “Through The Red Door”.

Listening to the album I have to admit I expected more. You can tell that this music is made on a home computer with some software with samples simply put together and added up. Some samples repeat a few times too often, so it gets boring. The voice is totally distorted in most songs and there is not much lyrics. Some parts in a few songs remind of the beginning stages of Vanity Beach, yet let me accent: only REMIND not sound alike. Some samples simply don’t match. For example there is too much electronic to which some guitar samples and drum samples are added all the sudden. To not be too negative, here’s a good thing: the voice creates a special mood and has something artificial. During some songs I wonder what the structure or the idea behind is. It seems like samples are randomly put together. But maybe I just have to listen to it more often to get it. Anyway, this album is not very good and I don’t really know who I could recommend it to. But I am sure there are people out there liking it.

Links:
Proving Ground MySpace
Proving Ground Official