Just like the universe expands, the dystopian universe of the Unexplained Sounds Group expands too. With earlier releases inspired by the works of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and even W.S. Burroughs before them, it is now time to step into the world of David Lynch. While reviewing this album, I’m on Wikipedia reading about the story behind it, and well, ‘Eraserhead’ was Lynch’s first major project, completed in 1976. He once referred to Eraserhead as ‘his Philadelphia story’. With that, he meant that the movie was based on all the dangerous and scary elements he encountered in Philadelphia, which left a deep impression. “When those feelings came out, it became Eraserhead.”
My collection already has quite a few albums with references to this movie, which emphasises the impact this movie has made on people. Or at least, certain people. There is the cover of ‘In Heaven’ on the ‘Children of God’ album by Haus Arafna (’98), and Brume / Christian Renou, of course, released the album ‘In Heaven’ in 2013. Two artists who are entirely different from each other, yet… The movie did that much that they both felt the need to pay tribute to each other. And on this album, there are 13 more of them, from un- or hardly known to famous, so to speak. Grey Frequency, Adi Newton, Oubys, Richard Bégin, Sonologyst, Kabra, Mario Lino Stancati, Mark Hjorthoy, Wahn, Macrogramma, Bruno Dorella, 400 Lonely Things and Nikos Sotirelis. Some names we’ve seen before on the Gibson and Dick releases, some names are new, so here, too, it’s an expanding universe.
When we delve into the promotional text a bit further, it discusses the sound design of the movie. Alan Splet and David Lynch left the realm of traditional music but created what became perhaps the first dark ambient soundscape, where musique concrète formed the foundation. It can be compared to what Bebe and Louis Barron did in 1956, when they wrote the first complete electronic soundtrack for Forbidden Planet. Was Splet’s sound design in combination with Lunch’ cinematography of that order?
Looking back, one might concur. Dune, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive are just a few movies with which Lynch proved that. And Splet – the man we all probably had never heard of before. With Lynch, he also worked on Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, and Dune, after which he worked on perhaps even bigger ones: The Mosquito Coast, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Dead Poets Society. And to emphasise his body of work, He passed away while working on The English Patient. And why were his ears and sound so good? Maybe because he was legally blind. And maybe that was why that soundtrack made an impact on all of us. He created the impact with what he couldn’t see by adding an extra visual layer to the sounds.
So, I’m closing the review with the words that this is one of the better samplers I’ve heard in a while in the realm of dark ambient/electronics-based music. But it’s just as with the movie ‘Eraserhead’. If you start reading about the content, it becomes less enjoyable to watch the movie. So here will my ‘no spoiler’ review end. This is one hell of an album.
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