“Cellophane Memories” by Chrystabell & David Lynch (Sacred Bones)
If you listen to Chrystabell & David Lynch’s new album, there’s a good chance that it will make you dream.
Not that “Cellophane Memories,” the latest collaboration between the auteur and his “Twin Peaks: The Return” co-star will put you to sleep — although its moody, ethereal sound might help you chill out.
The Oscar-nominated surrealist director behind “Mulholland Drive” and “Blue Velvet” has long stressed the importance of taking time to let your imagination wander, particularly when it comes to creating art.
He and Chrystabell help listeners achieve that state of contemplative wonder with their latest 10-track collaboration. It’s difficult to categorize “Cellophane Memories” within a genre, but it consists of austere lyrics and ambient soundscapes carried by Chrystabell’s hypnotic, reverbed vocals.
Although Lynch is known more widely for filmmaking, this is hardly the director’s first foray into music, nor is it his first project with Chrystabell. The pair have collaborated in various capacities for decades, beginning with the song “Polish Poem,” which was featured on Lynch’s 2006 film, “Inland Empire.”
Produced and written by Lynch and engineered by Chrystabell, the album is Lynch’s first since his longtime creative partner Angelo Badalamenti died in 2022. The late composer contributed to two tracks — “She Knew” and “So Much Love” — which are both carried by Badalamenti’s synthesizer.
The album is a sonic feast that, like so many of Lynch’s films, challenges modern attention spans. Listening to “Cellophane Memories” feels like doing yoga, or perhaps transcendental meditation. The impulse to find additional stimuli in the moment is strong, but the result, if you can stick it out, is a feeling of rejuvenation and boosted creative energy.
Much of the album sounds like it could have come straight from “Twin Peaks”; one wonders if its title is a nod to the series’ ultimate dead girl Laura Palmer being found wrapped in plastic. “Cellophane Memories” even occasionally employs the familiar, backward dialogue effect used in scenes in the red room to turn Chrystabell’s vocals into a kind of haunting instrument — like on the brooding “Reflections in a Blade.”
Hopeful and longing, at times disturbing and even seedy (particularly “The Answers to the Questions,” thanks to its slowed tempo and foregrounded percussion), the album vacillates between light and darkness — themes Lynch has throughout his career been keen to explore. His simpatico relationship with Chrystabell, whose creative use and mixing of her own voice elevates “Cellophane Memories,” is palpable in this record. KRYSTA FAURIA, MDT/AP
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