The Lynchian Sound.
David Lynch will be remembered for his oniric contributions to film, but what about his unique relationship with the medium’s sound?
photo by Patrick Fraser/Getty Images.
With cult filmmaker David Lynch passing away last month, his indistinguishable “Lynchian” aesthetic has once again become the subject of much attention. His dark, uncanny suburbia melds the nostalgic familiarity of cozy diners with the most profound perversions of our subconscious. His cherry pie and coffee, awkward humor, and experimentation have all been imprinted on the minds of generations since. However, while most will remember him for distorting the Hopper-esque mundane of America through surrealist horror, we cannot understate the role that sound had in his work. This obviously isn’t only limited to sound design, but also includes music; in fact, Lynch and the music industry have long gone hand in hand. He has released 3 music albums of his own, produced tracks for Donovan, propelled Chris Isaak’s hit Wicked Game up the charts, and the Twin Peaks intro may as well be among the most recognisable themes ever. His soundtracks seamlessly alternate between cool jazz, heavy metal, doo-wop and dream pop. Sound and music can determine the entire atmosphere of a moment, and I think few artists understand this better than Lynch.
Since the start, Lynch has attributed an unparalleled importance to the soundscapes of his work. See his earliest works (shorts such as The Grandmother and The Alphabet) to be bombarded by cacophonous drones. Most famously, in his debut feature Eraserhead, there is notoriously little dialogue. Instead, it is the background sounds of a decrepit city that take centre stage. And, listening to the sounds of Eraserhead as their stand-alone album release, one starts to draw connections with the earliest ambient/noise recordings coming out at the time; the film came out only two years after Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music and one year prior to Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. Lynch’s sound design doesn’t limit itself to match on-screen cues, but is a unique, musical, identity of its own. It’s not at all surprising that much of the recordings were made in the experimental traditions of field recording and musique concrete. Hours of wind were recorded in the Scottish Highlands, tapes were played back at incredibly low speeds, and, in the most remarkable example, a microphone was put in a plastic bottle while floating in a bathtub as air was blown into it. Throughout the runtime, there is a fascinating collaboration between auditory and visual mediums. Without its sonic tapestry of industrial screeches, I struggle to imagine Eraserhead achieving its levels of discomfort. Taking the immersiveness of sound design to the nth degree, you are truly dragged into the bleak, overwhelmed viewpoint of the weary protagonist. Already made explicit in his first project, we can see how Lynch blends the mediums of film and music to an extraordinary effect. When viewed through this lens, Eraserhead isn’t only limited to being great absurdist horror, but it becomes an incredibly interesting exercise in the power of film soundtracks and noise/drone music.
However, while Eraserhead pretty much abandoned the conventionally composed soundtrack, Lynch’s career would soon experience a turning point with Blue Velvet. On set, not only would Lynch meet his lifelong collaborator Angelo Badalament, but he would finally cement his sonic aesthetic. A freudian neo-noir, Blue Velvet is arguably Lynch’s most accessible, yet horrifying film. It notoriously plays with the duality of good and evil, and, more specifically, that of appearance and deception. And Lynch’s sound design certainly reflects this duality. Without turning to the aggressive dissonance of Eraserhead, the sound of Blue Velvet balances hauntingly distorted echoes with the melodramatic strings of a Golden Age noir. But, funnily enough, it is 50s teen pop that takes centre stage. In fact, the entire film stemmed from the titular Bobby Vinton track, which made Lynch imagine the renowned opening sequence. A thesis statement to the director’s world view, this scene perfectly matches idealistic family suburbs with the saccharine swooning of the teen idol. It’s all in perfect harmony, but to an excessive degree, and that’s what is key to the Lynchian uncanny: this inexplicable discomfort in the seemingly beautiful and familiar. However, despite the film’s progressively darker atmosphere, we are still exposed to the same nostalgic, upbeat tracks. Best expressed with the recurring motif of “In Dreams” by rockabilly icon Roy Orbinson, Lynch taints any comforting associations that the music may have with the horrors shown onscreen. Taking a completely opposite approach to Eraserhead, instead of disorienting us with the nightmarish and otherworldly, Blue Velvet subtly unsettles us with the familiar and homely. By distorting the quintessentially american iconography of vintage music, Lynch effectively comunicates his greater fear of innocuous appearances.
On the other hand, Lynch’s sprawling TV show Twin Peaks exhibits the apotheosis of the Lynchian vision. Delicately balancing the dark and light, it is equally disturbed as it is goofy, as high-brow as it is trashy. And this equilibrium certainly applies to its approach to sound as well. Comfortably finding a middle ground between Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, there is such a peculiar, unpredictable variety of music. Just see the live performances from the third season: the Nine Inch Nails, the Chromatics, and Eddie Vedder are just a few. And this is not to mention the soundtrack that oscillates between Brubeck, Penderecki, and ZZ Top. Overall, it’s a very messy affair that somehow works elegantly, but we can nonetheless trace the key ideas from his previous works. Like in Blue Velvet, Lynch recontextualises familiar genres into new settings; a striking example is hearing the blissful crooning of The Platters interrupt an otherwise apocalyptic episode. Like in Eraserhead, Lynch constructs his surreal environments through alienating drones (now characterised by electric and metallic timbres). However, what ties the sound of Twin Peaks together is the compositions by Angelo Badalamenti. Inspired by the sounds of Golden Age Hollywood and smooth/noir jazz, Badalamenti captures the aforementioned essence of the Lynchian sound. Its tranquility is both alluring and unsettling, being most famously exhibited in the warm, laid-back twang of the intro’s theme.
In the end, it is precisely this eclectic amalgamation of musical styles that makes Lynch’s sonic atmosphere so hard to define. Juggling the immense commerciality of Bobby Vinton-types with avant-garde, industrial drones, the Lynchian sound ultimately constructs the backdrop to his films’ mysteries. Without these ever-present soundscapes, Lynch’s filmography would have never permeated our subconscious the way it has.
edited by Sixto Mendez.
photo by Patrick Fraser/Getty Images.