Jason Calhoun’s naps project has been captivating us for a number of years now. The Philadelphia-based artist’s signature is combining field recordings with ambient drone to form aural collages that, despite their wordless nature, conjure tangible emotions. “The music of naps defies direct description,” we described in a previous review. “There are no lyrics to decipher, no traditional play between guitar and bass and drums. Instead you’re presented with ambiguities, textures and tones and slow creeping sensations that rise from the tape hiss and static.”
The latest naps release, better to give, released on Omaha, Nebraska label Gertrude Tapes, sees Calhoun continue in his singular vision. Opening track ‘blind’ begins with a repetitive scratching sound, as if the title refers to a mole rooting through dark soil, or an artist scumbling paint onto a canvas in a bolt of sightless inspiration. Behind this is a slow dawning ambience, droning keys that illuminate the song from within like winter afternoon sunlight.
This flows into ‘treading’, built of birdsong and creaking doors and the rumble of a highway. The droning keys slide in slowly, starting almost inaudible, like a clenched jaw, and advancing steady and weightless as fair-weather clouds.
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The last of the shorter tracks, ‘to give’ is wrapped up in a grainy, fuzzy whir, like the hum of life around us we too often forget to hear, soft rounded bloops splashing against the background like spherical raindrops. The two final tracks stretch out, ‘each year’ just over nine minutes of beautifully meditative organ, and ‘no heat’ a ten minute exercise in marrying patient atmospherics with cryptic field recordings. Despite the run-times, there isn’t a second wasted on needless experimentation, each note and muffled creak unhurried but necessary.
And that’s what sets naps apart from much of the genre. Too often the eschewal of ear-worm melodies or verse-chorus-verse dynamics equates to impenetrability in experimental music, but Calhoun’s music doesn’t feel like blind experimentation. Listening to a naps record isn’t a step into the unknown, but rather something oddly familiar—its goal not to tear apart the reality into an alien soundscape, but rather accentuate the real so as to draw our attention to the texture and detail that exists all around.
better to give is out now and you can get it on cassette from Gertrude Tapes or download from the naps Bandcamp page.
