Julee Cruise — Floating Into the Night

One of the special qualities of the work of David Lynch is his use of incidental sound and music. His soundtrack for Eraserhead (1977) was an example of industrial paranoia writ large only one year after the debut of Throbbing Gristle in London. His aesthetic was simultaneously contemporary and ahead of it’s time. Another example of his use of music was the frequent use of the singer Julee Cruise who’s elfin tones were deployed on Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks (both the TV series and film). This album is an amalgamation of the best of Julee’s Lynch inspired work.

From the beginning of track one, Floating,  the music has that classic feel of David Lynch’ oeuvre. Paranoiac 50s throwback vibe, superficial innocence masking the underlying depravity and darkness. The voice of Cruise is totally arresting, soft and vulnerable transmitting every inch of emotion and ambiguity required.

Lynch wrote the Lyrics while his long-time collaborator Anglo Badalamenti composed the haunting, quasi ambient music. Every track has that same feeling of being a bit out of joint, out of time and place, and as a result has a timeless quality about it. You would have a hard time placing the era of this record if you new nothing about it.

Falling is the theme tune to Twin Peaks TV series. That bizarre plucked bass and minimal keyboard that seemed so out of place at the beginning of an American TV drama. In hindsight the suggestive mystery and obscurity of the music perfectly fit’s the metaphysical and otherworldly feel of the show. Other tracks taken from Twin Peaks include the brilliantly dark Into the Night, the soaring love ballad of Rock back inside my heart and World Spin which is a even more minimal version of the shows theme tune with more abstract lyrics.

The classic love theme from Blue velvet, Mysteries Of Love is also here, a totally dreamy pop-ambient mood piece that still inspires today (it was covered a few years ago by Antony and the Johnson’s). The music of David Lynch has inspired just as much as his visual style, think about the post-rock of Labradford and Tortoise, or so much of the electronic dream-pop that circulated during the 90s and you see the legacy of Lynch’s sound world. This record is an absolutely all consuming trip into fantasy and nightmare. A little bit of trivia for those esoterica buffs out there. The cover of this album was the inspiration for the CD release of Nurse With Wounds Homotopy To Marie album.