Music about breakups and video game soundtracks, at first glance, you’ll agree, themes that seem utterly unrelated. The first speaks of the personal – the pain of loss, the tenderness of memories, the slowed-down beating of the heart. The second draws a map of imaginary worlds, leading us through pixel forests and cities that don’t exist. Yet precisely at the intersection of these universes, a new sound emerges: a voice full of longing rests upon an electronic rhythm, and an intimate drama turns into a quest. Memories become game levels, and the attempt to start anew sounds like an extra life.

It is in this direction that American musician Ry Mohon, also known under the artistic name Chloe Navarre, is working. His path stretches from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he spent his childhood, to Boston, where he later moved. Ry Mohon’s debut album was released in April 2016 and became a reworking of his early songs, and today he is actively working across various pop/rock and electronic genres. Alongside his solo projects, the artist runs an Instagram account where he interacts with fans, and participates in the podcast Dr. Donut & The Dingus, dedicated to music and contemporary culture.

But the main event of this year is the new album “Periwinkle“, released under the name Chloe Navarre. This work became an attempt to unite the space of personal feelings with the aesthetics of virtual reality. Echoes of trance, electronics, glitch-hop, and ambient can be heard here, woven into a single fabric. In these tracks, past and present, the intimate and the playful, the real and the imagined interact with one another. It is symbolic that the source of inspiration for” Periwinkle” was precisely a sense of inner desert – that same Santa Fe, where solitude and tenderness are woven into an inseparable knot. The musician managed to give this inner geography a musical voice: to create music in which the sadness of partings and the fantasy of video games sound like different facets of a single life story. “Periwinkle” is an album about love, about searching for new worlds – a genre that could be called a soundtrack to the inner life.

Twelve tracks of differing moods come together into a coherent, expansive record. It draws you in and envelops you, allowing you to discover new shades of sound with every listen. The record opens with the title track “Periwinkle” – calm and a little sorrowful. Its sound seems to detach you from the surrounding world and carry you into your own thoughts and feelings. Here the artist organically weaves detached melancholy into the fabric of trance and techno. Interesting to me was the track “Petrolized”. First, through its creation of a mystical atmosphere, and second, because the music delivers a dense rhythm. I was drawn to its unhurried, booming drums, original electronic effects, and strict, upward-reaching vocals.

Also noteworthy is the track “Solid Proof“, which stands out as one of the album’s more playful pieces. Its sound resembles laser fire through a synthesizer blizzard, while the voices of video game characters overlap with each other, creating a vivid soundstage. This mixture of sound effects and melodies gives the track a playful, lively character, inevitably stirring nostalgia for the era of classic video games. Particularly insistent and melancholic is the composition “Analemma“: its basis is a slightly “smoky” rhythm, combined with a subtle shade of contemporary retro-aesthetics in the sound balance. The result is a rich and stylistically distinct mix. If you’re comfortable with the epithet “smoked” in describing a sound, then it perfectly characterizes Chloe Navarre’s style. Here the artist has created his own signature “tasty twist.”

The lush, spectrally wide track “Doubt of the Benefit” also cannot be overlooked – techno grooves and house, an abundance of synthesizers, soft vocals playing a somewhat larger role here than in the previous tracks, yet still woven organically into the track’s overall picture. The vocal palette across the album is colorful and diverse: there are vocoder underlays, synth-vocals, both female and male voices in an unperturbed electropop-style. For example, in “Mañana Boi, “the voice is hidden behind techno rhythms, yet never releases your attention. Frequent changes of rhythm and timbre, along with hypnotic repeating sound patterns, recall experimental electronic compositions. This discovered “new naturalness” and synergy gives the album’s sound a cohesive, convincing, and captivating polyphony. At the same time, all the music belongs to roughly one imaginative world, in one energy key – it is rhythmic and dynamic. Chloe Navarre makes beautiful, freely flowing music. The release closes with the effectively energetic, contemplative, intriguing track “Twilight Toke” – a song full of meaning, melodicism, and arrangement details, all while strictly following the unified spirit and canon of the album.

“Periwinkle” album cover

Chloe Navarre’s album “Periwinkle” is not to be missed! This powerful and vibrant addition to electronic music will appeal to fans of the genre and those searching for a way to step out of daily routine and dissolve into sound. Formally an electronic album, it unites diverse stylistic influences, creating a multifaceted sound.

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