PKR - A Nu Birth

Hear The Track Here

Over the past couple of years I have reviewed a steady stream of Indian musicians of all stripes, but over the last year in particular, I seem to have become innundated with review requests from that continent. Now I am well aware of just how enormous India is, and the amount of people that country holds but the feeling still persists that they are passing my name around between themselves saying 'Go see Gilmore, he LIKES Indian musicians. While that is undoubtedly true, having championed the careers of two of India's finest Indie musicians from the getgo (Prash and Omnisine, seeing as you asked), I hope I am not heading towards Indian musician burnout territory. Thinking further though, the sheer high quality of the Indian musicians I have heard this year would stop that from happening.

PKR is extreme shorthand for Prakhar Kumar, the musician under scrutiny here. He's from Dehradun India and - not surprisingly - he's classed as a World music artist. Aaah, but as we well know, there is a chasm of difference between interpretations of the genre. A Nu Birth sounds surprisingly New Age soundtrack material to me, and I think most regular readers will know just how feel about that genre. Having said that, there is no doubt that Prakhar has put in the work to make the track sound the way it should, and people who DO like the genre (either soft World music or New Age/Soundtrack) will find much here that will relax them on the journey.

I think, therefore, that my reaction to this track is muted because of my dislike for this whole style. It shouldn't worry this musician in the slightest because at least I could find nothing to pick on in the execution of the track, and it's obvious he likes what he's doing and ultimately that's all that counts. If I had to raise a couple of quibbles, I would say that maybe the instruments were a little too clean for the way the track operates, but again that's more of a nitpick than a complaint. I seem to have a truncated version of this too, which doesn't really help the review process, and I can never get that stupid SC player to work properly...sheesh...

As the man says, 'something to soothe the soul'.