International sensation Protocultre, will ignite the fires inside deep inside us in Johannesburg....

From Asia to South America, this trance legend, has kept mass crowds awake till dawn dancing to his pulsating sounds and with smiles all around. DJ and producer Nate Raugenheimer, a.k.a. Protoculture, took the psy trance scene by storm with his first album “Refractions” after completing his studies at the age of 20 in Audio Engineering. Watch out for more of his collaborations this year, that show him strive to take things slightly left from the middle...

We are proud to introduce to you, Nate, a little behind the scenes...

OK, so what have you been up to this year? I spent 7 weeks in Holland and Ibiza, and I was wondering if you experienced the European Summer? Favourite place for lunch in Ibiza? If so, share me some highlights....
Funny enough, I actually never been to Ibiza, although I’ve been pretty much everywhere else in Europe. I didn’t spend as much time in Europe this summer as I usually do, although I did make to Budapest, Stockholm and Vienna. I spent a lot more time touring Asia and South America.

Can you name one life defining track, where nothing was ever the same thereafter?
(Mine is ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’, The Orb)
Ha ha, these kinda questions are always so difficult cause there are so many tracks that have made an impact on me over the years, although Orbital’s “Halcyon on and on” springs to mind.

In your own words, how would you describe your sound that you create?
It’s melodic, euphoric, emotional and beautiful. I love music that touches you on an emotional level. Also, I like to think my sound is kinda universal, that anyone could sit down and enjoy it.

Where do you draw your inspiration from musically? Is there any particular instrument you like to work with?
Anywhere I can really... Living in a beautiful city like Cape Town helps, and I also listen to a lot of different music other than EDM stuff from Classical to Rock. You get a lot of inspiration from travelling as well, seeing what works on dance floors around the world and hooking up with other artists and DJ’s. As for instruments, I’m a keyboard player and there’s nothing quite as expressive as playing an acoustic piano. I don’t use pianos all that much in my work but I love those kinds of tones... Warm, plucked kind of sounds.

What does the rest of the year hold for you? Where are you for the New Year’s celebration?
I’ve got a few local gigs in Cape Town at the new Trinity club which I’ve been offered a residency at. After Christmas I’m hopping on a plane to Goa, India for Sunburn Festival which is gonna be massive. I’ll be there with Ferry Corsten, Axwell, Funkagenda, Sultan and Ned Shepard, Nadia Ali, BT, Aly and Fila, John 00 Flemming, Dave Seamen... The list goes on. After that I’m quickly shooting over to Brazil for new years eve, then back to India to continue the tour there.

I understand there is a radio show that you are working on. Tell me what the content of the show is, sounds exciting?
Yeah, I’m about to launch the show, called Prototype Radio on the 14th of December. It’s an hour long show featuring al my favourite trance and progressive tracks at the moment. The show will air every second Tuesday of the month at 8PM CET / 7PM GMT on the trance channel at www.pure.fm. I’ll probably make the shows available via soundcloud or itunes as a podcast at some point as well, but for now you can check out the Prototype Radio page at Facebook for more info.

What’s on the cards for The Dark Forest event? What will be your opening track?
I play a quite a mix of styles from tech trance, progressive and trance, but I’ll be playing a lot of my new productions as well as the work I’m doing with Max Graham. As for the opening track, well, I’m not sure really, it always depends on what the dancefloor looks like so you’ll just have to wait and see.

Looking forward to the show.
Thanks for sharing...