Tuxedomoon & Cult With No Name

Crammed Discs

Here the soundtrack to the documentary is available before the film – but that’s fair enough or at least understandable given the documentary looks at David Lynch’s cult classic, Blue Velvet, some 30 years after its release, with never-before-seen footage from the shoot and still photographs of cast and crew.

So for the soundtrack electronic balladeers Cult With No Name combined and collaborated with post-punk-meets-chamber-music pioneers Tuxedomoon.

The result is music that wafts into place and drifts in its own space and whilst never really “Lynch-ian” as such there are gorgeous, vaguely haunting moments, such as the piano framing across Lumberton; the sort of moment or movement regular Lynch composer Angelo Badalamenti may well have found himself at.

The ambient and airy shadowy-jazz of So Fucking Suave is one of the highlights here, as is the moody tinkling and nocturnal scrapings of Now It’s Dark, very much in the Mike Figgis mold.

Nothing feels out of place, at least as much as can be told – though the nearly 10-minute Lincoln Street doesn’t seem to do anything, or go anywhere. It might mean more with a set of images to sit in behind. Small gripe though, most of the music here deserves to occupy a space away from the film, the moody Frank and Penguin Café Orchestra-esque Alligator Briefcase providing further highlights.

I don’t imagine there’s ever been a particularly huge call for documentary soundtrack – unless the name attached, a key composer perhaps (Philip Glass for instance, or more recently Max Richter) helps to sell it. But here it’s the name behind it all, David Lynch, that will ensure this an audience. Tuxedomoon and Cult With No Name have provided some excellent ideas here. Can’t wait to see how they slot in behind the project to no doubt enhance it.