David Lynch
Crazy Clown Time
(Sunday Best)
****
The same week that news broke of Silvio Berlusconi's forthcoming album of love songs (and its subsequent delay due to Italy's mounting debt), David Lynch's solo debut landed. And just as Mr Bunga Bunga couldn't conceivably be anything other than a shiny-faced ballad crooner, the master of surrealist cinema's first solo LP clearly wasn't going to be a collection of Europop anthems or anything featuring Sean Paul on vocals.
Such is the unique style of Lynch's filmmaking, coupled with the countless tales of eccentricity surrounding the man himself, that it's near impossible to pick up Crazy Clown Time without already having a good idea what might be coming out of the speakers. And those preconceptions are fully justified. It's dark, brooding and unsettling, soaked in reverb and electronic washes, often outright weird, but strangely compelling nonetheless. Basically, it's exactly as one might expect from the man Dennis Hopper once accused of having a "sick, twisted mind", littered with the hallmarks that have made "Lynchian" almost a genre in its own right.
The album opens with the eerie stuttering guitars of Pinky's Dream. Telling the story of a diva driving recklessly down a dimly lit road, this track – featuring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O on vocals – could easily fill in should a future release of Lost Highway require a new song for the opening credits. Good Day Today, Lynch's unique slice of electro-pop, sees the cult director add his own vocoderised messages of positivity over a minimal electro undercurrent, with the odd splattering of gunfire and explosions popping up infrequently enough to keep listeners on their toes.
Bubbling over a sharp, up-tempo drumbeat, Good Day Today is probably the closest he'll get to entering the pop mainstream. It also stands out on an album that mainly sticks to Lynch's signature bluesy, slow-paced and distinctly chilling style. Several songs, for example, should be consumed in the dark only by the most fearless. Buzzing with reverb, the title track has Lynch's falsetto competing with echoing wails for terror. Likewise, in I Know, Lynch's initial high-pitched, croaky offering of the song title over the echoing organs is likely to have most neck hairs standing on end.
Crazy Clown Town certainly isn't Lynch's first venture into music. He's worked on almost every one of his soundtracks, alongside numerous collaborative works, occasional bouts of songwriting for others and last year's Dark Sound of the Soul with Danger Mouse. But it's the first time where – Karen O aside – it's just Lynch, alone and – as you might imagine – surrounded by dilapidated synthesizers, effects pedals, perhaps a few half-empty mugs of David Lynch Signature Cup Organic Coffee and no doubt with a space in the corner for a spot of transcendental meditation.
While it isn't free of the odd duff track, Crazy Clown Town is every inch the Lynch record. It's equally bewildering as it is gripping, and clearly arranged with intense precision despite brimming with chaos. His film soundtracks may well be available, but here is a soundtrack for the man himself.
