Oliver Moldan - Black Souls download free

"Black Souls" is a wonderfully dark, yet distinctly euphoric piece of progressive house. The whole piece is underscored by a heavy, late 90's style primitive kick drum, which gives it beautiful charm. Upon first listen, I originally thought I was in for another piece of boring minimalistic tech-house, albeit with a fatter bass line. Clicks and swooshes punctuate the first minute of the track, but they soon grow in volume and work in with a dark pad and some wind-like long "swoosh" noises. Like most of Moldan's previous work, especially under Prawler, with Peter Jürgens, "Black Souls" displays wonderful progression. The song builds tension beautifully, and teases for a long time before it delivers. Lasting for just under ten minutes, there is barely a dull moment. "Black Souls" is inherently likeable, the kind of song that you could play for you Grandma to hear her say "that's nice deary, but it's very repetitive". Only during some of the darker acidic breakdowns could the senior citizens complain. The main melody is comprised of beautiful, almost trancey bells which seem to have no discernible pattern, yet remain entirely coherent. On the downside...Well, I can't think of one just yet. I might have to work on it. The B Side is a remix by Steffen Herb. Herb's version of "Black Souls" adds some more punch to the kick drum, and lightens the overall impact of it, giving a more bouncy electro feel. Thankfully, he's been clever enough to keep Moldan's original melody, which completely makes the track, but rather than leave it at that, wonderful reverb effects have been added to a counter melody that sounds like water droplets echoing through a drain somewhere. At times the track is slow to progress, and you find yourself wondering when the next element is going to come in, but on a dance floor this would not be noticeable, as opposed to sitting in a comfy chair at home armed with an analytical mind. The highlight of this side is a wonderful breakdown which lasts for a full 90 seconds, yet somehow manages to avoid feeling contrived as trance breakdowns often do (I'm not suggesting that either of the songs on this release are trance though!). Both sides of this release are enormously pleasurable listens, but I'd pick the original over the remix.