Experimenting with Nostalgic Melodies
Jason Calhoun’s music is built from an unusual combination of tones, textures and electronic
sounds that often seem incompatible until blended together. On Revelations of Divine Love,
piano-like synths, chirping electronics, static and other unexpected details create an out-
of-body listening experience. Rather than directing the listener toward one specific
interpretation, Calhoun leaves his music undefined, allowing listeners to develop their own perspective of what these strange combinations of sounds create.
What makes Calhoun’s approach distinctive is his use of repetition. Synth patterns, twinkling
tones and simple electronic motifs appear throughout Revelations of Divine Love, giving the
album a dreamlike vibration embedded in nostalgia. At times, its atmosphere recalls the soundtracks of video games such as Undertale and Minecraft, where even simple melodies can create surprisingly emotional and immersive worlds. Calhoun achieves that fantasy world by placing straightforward synth chords against indescribable background layers. The result feels like a blank canvas, leaving listeners free to create their own stories around what they hear.
“Too Shy,” the album’s opening track, immediately introduces curiosity and
uncertainty. It feels like stepping into an unfamiliar digital world and discovering its
surroundings as the music unfolds. “Tolstoy Tatsoi” develops this idea through a consistent beat
surrounded by computer-like beeps, static and white noise. These sounds gradually become part of the album’s vocabulary, recurring across different tracks while taking on slightly different forms.
“Sextet” is particularly effective at pushing those technological ideas further. Beginning with some of the same twinkling effects and white noise heard on “Tolstoy Tatsoi,” the track gradually becomes more transportive. Clicking sounds, traveling rhythms and shifting textures move through each ear, creating the sensation of letting go of your surroundings and being present. There is something almost cinematic about the experience: Calhoun transforms familiar electronic noises into a science-fiction landscape that feels strangely believable.
Yet the consistency of Calhoun’s sound world can also become the album’s weakness. Despite
the variety of individual layers, the recurring ringing, chirping, pinging and synthesized textures
eventually begin to resemble one another. At times, Revelations of Divine Love feels less like a
collection of individual tracks than one extended composition divided into separate pieces. That
may be intentional, but the repetition occasionally makes the album more predictable, leaving out the beauty of imagination.
Still, Calhoun successfully combines instrumental experimentation, dreamscape and nostalgia
into a peculiar listening experience. Revelations of Divine Love is most compelling when it
refuses to explain itself. Its layered sounds suggest images and emotions without insisting on
what they should represent. By leaving those questions unresolved, Calhoun invites listeners to
become participants in the music, creating their own imagery and meaning while entering the
unusual world he has constructed.
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