REVIEW // David Lynch — the big dream

Director cum musician has the chops to entertain. ***/5

David Lynch is not a musician. He even refuses to be called one. But that hasn’t stopped him from releasing a passion project that loyalists will take hold of by sheer name rights alone.

Following what may be his final film, 2006’s Inland Empire, Lynch has taken to exploring various forms of artistic expression, including acting, painting, photography and, since 2001, music.

The Big Dream is a marked improvement from 2011’s Crazy Clown Time, particularly in focus and orchestral balance.

Much of the album is a surrealist, modern blues record that’s been passed through the creative channels of the auteur director’s mind.

“Star Dream Girl” is a march of old world blues set adrift in some clouded vision. Lynch’s thin-nasal voice cracks in a beautiful protest over a smooth Southern guitar lick.

Simple storytelling adheres to intoxicating surf-rock influences with “Say It.” The haunting brilliance of “I Want You” pulsates with hesitant lyrics of repressed emotion that flutter out from an adolescent mind.

“Can I alone look at the sky my dear
I am not every falling star
Make a wish, it will turn away
So we can love on til infinity…

Closing the album is the Lykke Li collaboration “I’m Waiting Here,” a somber cadence evoking the gentle sway of youths in the school dancehall.

Lynch may be far from having crafted the sonic equivalent to any of his films, but the imaginative spirit that runs throughout his celluloid is no less apparent on the record.

***/5

A version of this review was originally published in San Antonio Current.