VARIOUS ARTISTS / Wild at Heart: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [1990]

The soundtrack to director David Lynch's batshit crazy road-trip rom-com Wild at Heart has been a staple in my music collection since it's 1990 release.
Dramatically opening with a suitable snippet from Strauss' swan song Four Last Songs, the album is quick to bounce all over the musical map.  There's tongue-in-cheek speed metal, the obligatory finger-snapping Badalamenti jazz, Chris Isaak oozing sultry drama over reverberated guitars, scrappy rockabilly toe-tappers, lush orchestrated string pieces and all topped off with actor Nicolas Cage crooning like The King.  As incohesive as it all sounds it's still a tight little package of dreamy madness that reflects the schizophrenic nature of the film itself.

5 psalms from the Old Testament out of 5

Songs of Note: RUBBER CITY / Perdita; CHRIS ISAAK / Blue Spanish Sky

JULEE CRUISE / Floating into the Night [1989]

After collaborating with director David Lynch & composer Angelo Badalamenti on a cut from the Blue Velvet soundtrack, singer Julee Cruise ending up recording a full album with the songwriting duo, resulting in 1989's dream-pop cult classic Floating into the Night.
Combining Badalamenti's dreamy contemporary jukebox jazz, Lynch's playful cliché lovesick lyrics with Cruise's ethereal falsetto voice creates a hauntingly soothing atmosphere.  5 of the 10 tracks would end up appearing in Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks so it could easily be considered an extended soundtrack to the show but on it's own it stands quite well, considering you have a taste for this sort of music.  It can't help but escape comparisons to The Cocteau Twins or This Mortal Coil, so in short it's one of the best albums record label 4AD never put out.

4 sad dreams blowing through trees out of 5

Songs of Note: Rockin' Back Inside My Heart; The World Spins

ANGELO BADALAMENTI / Soundtrack from Twin Peaks [1990]

With David Lynch & Mark Frost's 1990 primetime TV series Twin Peaks becoming a worldwide phenomenon it seemed like a no-brainer to release a soundtrack album featuring composer Angelo Badlamenti's iconic score.
Meticulously setting the tone of the oddball series with perfection, Badalamenti jumped from beautifully melodramatic to feverish-playful jazz, using a small ensemble led by his synthesized string section and flighty piano fingering.  The emotions weave in and out of dark, sad, quirky but most of all very atmospheric to the point that it's very much an unseen leading character of the television series.  As an added bonus to the score, we're graced with three wonderful source songs from the whimsically voiced Julee Cruise, written by Badalamenti & Lynch.
As short and sweet as it is, this is one of those albums that formed me into the person that I am today and it will forever be a defining staple in my collection.

5 dances for men from another place out of 5

Songs of Note: The Bookhouse Boys; Into the Night (performed by Julee Cruise)

VARIOUS ARTISTS / Blue Velvet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [1986]

Like the 1986 David Lynch masterpiece, the original soundtrack album for Blue Velvet is a grand mixture of the beautiful and bizarre.
Marking the first collaboration between the director and composer Angelo Badalamenti, the score is a dark nod to Bernard Herrman's neo-noir works with it's romantic combination of lush string writing and an ominous brass section.  The other half of the album transports you into the unspecified forgotten era of the film with a series of both modern and classic pop songs, a series of sound effects and some cool cat jazz numbers.  It's a nice little piece of audio memorabilia from the film but misses several musical moments that cries for an updated deluxe version on it's 30th Anniversary.  

4 songs that aren't This Mortal Coil out of 5

Songs of Note: Main Titles; Mysteries of Love (performed by Julee Cruise)

JOHN MORRIS / The Elephant Man: Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture [1980]

After the nightmarishly puzzling Eraserhead, director David Lynch took more of a conventional approach with his sophomore follow-up both in film narrative and music with 1980's The Elephant Man.
Instead of scoring the film himself a second time, Lynch turned to Young Frankenstein composer John Morris and the results suit the surreal black & white heart-break of the film to a tee.  For the main theme, Morris channels the same sort of somber Eastern European off-kilter carnival tones Danny Elfman would relate to early in his career.  The tickling xylophones, twinkling chimes and swaying organ of the main theme counteract with the heart-wrenching strings and crying woodwinds of a secondary theme that harkens back to some of Bernard Herrmann's more dramatic scores.  It's all very simple composing and orchestrations but it's easy on the ears and works with the film so perfectly it's nothing short of a success both on-screen and on it's own.

4 adagio for strings out of 5

Songs of Note: The Elephan Man Theme; Recapitulation

DAVID LYNCH & ALAN R. SPLET / Eraserhead: Original Soundtrack Recording [2012]

The soundtrack album to director David Lynch's 1977 black & white cult classic Eraserhead is literally a sound track album in every way.
Instead of being a collection of songs or score cues, it's a nightmarish mural of decaying soundscapes & awkward dialogues lifted directly from the movie, sounding something like a field recording from a mildly humorous industrial Hell dimension.  It roars and rumbles while unsettling soundclips of disturbed sexual frustration and a creepy-ass baby...er...thing cries out from the shadows and every now & then a haunted organ flutters in, courtesy of Fats Waller, and as the rotten cherry on top, the Lady in the Radiator chimes in with her disfigured beauty.  A terrifying symphony of noise, David Lynch & Alan R. Splet's sound design isn't for everybody but if this is your kind of thing then bathe in it's dark ambience.

4 regular chickens out of 5

Songs Of Note: In Heaven: Pete's Boogie

DAVID LYNCH / The Big Dream [2013]

On David Lynch's second solo album, 2013's The Big Dream, he goes a lot more bluesier than his previous solo effort, 2011's Crazy Clown Time but it's still obviously run through a Lynchian filter of reverb and drowsy swagger.  
It's very apparent Lynch feels more confident with his musical abilities this time around and doesn't hide it behind the stark weirdness of his first album.  He might be using fairly generic chord progressions but it's made interesting by splashes of sonic textures and a dreamy twang that screams of crackling neon lights outside a sleepy gas station found on the Lost Highway on a warm summer's night.

3 icky foreign beers out of 5

Songs Of Note: Cold Wind Blowin'; Are You Sure

CHRYSTA BELL / This Train [2011]

Sort of like the more feminine and velvety counterpart to David Lynch's Crazy Clown Time, Chrysta Bell's This Train is a sultry, pleasant little trip into a dreamworld that time forgot.
Produced and co-written by Lynch himself, This Train features Bell's soulful, almost blues-like voice at the forefront while it's backed up by reverberated guitars twinkling over brush drums and smooth low end bass notes ringing in the distance.
With an ethereal voice dripping with sex-appeal and hazy Lynchian musical backdrops, This Train is a hypnotizing journey into the weird and alluring.

3½ trains in the woods out of 5

Songs Of Note: Swing With Me; Real Love

DAVID LYNCH / Crazy Clown Time [2011]

Film director David Lynch has always been closely involved with the music in his films and has even dabbled in songwriting himself, so it never came as much of a surprise when he announced he would release his own solo album.
Crazy Clown Time is a collection of late night noirish slowdance pieces that conjure up disorienting images of cigarette smoke, unruly sex and flickering lights. It's repetitive dirty bluesy dance music painted over with vocals disguised in heavy FX yet still recognizably Lynch.
His music doesn't particularly beg for your undivided attention but more or less allows you to get lost in an almost transcendental state. It's good but not great. Basically everything I expected it to be and I'm pleased with just that.

3½ tables painted red out of 5

Songs Of Note: Pinky's Dream (featuring Karen O); Stone's Gone Up