Given that David Lynch always made such a significant contribution to the music so effectively deployed in his brilliantly atmospheric films – co-writing, for instance, the famous Twin Peaks theme – it is perhaps no surprise that he has now, at the ripe young age of 65, finally got around to recording an entire album. Aficionados of the director’s output will likely know what to expect from Crazy Clown Time (hard to think of a more Lynchian title than that), which finds him skilfully drawing from his tried and trusted palette of dark electro atmospherics, unsettling industrial dissonance, dream-pop and ambient.
First up is ‘Pinky’s Dream’, a typically eerie Lynch soundscape with some impressive vocals from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O. There is more vintage electro weirdness on both ‘Good Day Today’ and ‘So Glad’, the former featuring Lynch’s heavily processed voice intoning phrases like, “Some kind of fire/ Some kind of smoke”, the latter an ominous composition built around the refrain: “I’m so glad you’re gone”. One of the standout tracks is ‘Noah’s Ark’, which strongly recalls the work of Lynch’s long-time soundtrack co-conspirator Angelo Badalamenti, boasting as it does a funky bassline and a general air of mystery and intrigue, all topped off with Lynch menacingly whispering, “I know a song to sing on this dark night”.
Lynch’s name, of course, is a byword for weirditude, but his work has always boasted a healthy streak of deadpan humour (one of his key quotes being, “I see absurdity all around me”), and I have to say I chuckled at the title ‘Strange And Unproductive Thinking’. There is also humour to be found in the torrential lyrics, which read like an extract from a guide book on Lynch’s beloved transcendental meditation: “In the aforementioned dialogues, we discovered the possibilities of the curve... And the ultimate realisation of the goal of evolution”. Well, it certainly makes a change from Beady Eye!
Overall, Crazy Clown Time proves that Mr. Lynch has as much to offer in the realm of music as he does in film.