As mystifying as one of his films

ROCK

November 08, 2011|By James Reed, Globe Staff

Leave it to David Lynch to make a debut solo album as bewildering and elusive as his movies. After years of collaborating with musicians, the visionary behind “Blue Velvet,’’ “Eraserhead,’’ and “Lost Highway’’ has finally recorded what could be the soundtrack to those films’ most unsettling moments.

The director likens his music to “modern blues,’’ a term that belies the grim and hallucinatory effect of “Crazy Clown Time.’’ Like the plot of “Mulholland Drive,’’ nothing on this album is what it appears to be. Lynch’s reedy voice has been so processed, he sounds like either an android or an apparition crooning from the bottom of the ocean.

These songs lurch, sometimes crawl, through a swamp of woozy synths, twanging electric guitars, and portentous melodies. A haze rarely heard outside a Cocteau Twins record hovers over “These Are My Friends.’’ “I Know’’ and “Speed Roadster’’ come closest to capturing the stark paranoia and desolation of Lynch’s movies.

This being David Lynch, there are some utter head-scratchers. The opening “Pinky’s Dream,’’ sung by Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O, belongs on another album. Clocking in at more than seven minutes, “Strange and Unproductive Thinking’’ chugs like a short-circuited lecture on quantum physics; head spinning optional.

Maybe it’s no surprise that the album’s strangest curveball is also its most straightforward song. “Good Day Today’’ pulses like an anthem in search of the nearest gay bar, casting Lynch as the unlikeliest dance diva ever. When asked by the Globe last year if it was the kind of song he would dance to, Lynch quipped, “Yeah, if I got drunk enough.’’ (Out today)

ESSENTIAL “I Know’’