Dean Hurley ‘Anthology Resource Vol. 1: △△’ Review: Sound Designer shares sonic cues from ‘Twin Peaks The Return.’ 

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Twin Peaks The Return fans will have to wait until September for the soundtracks featuring both Angelo Badalamenti’s score and all the acts who appeared in the Road House segments. But for those obsessives wanting even more Lynchian aural experiences, Dean Hurley offers an enticing proposition.

Hurley, the sound and music supervisor behind the acclaimed Showtime series has just released Anthology Resource Vol. 1: △△, a collection of sound design elements from The Return, and it proves an enlightening and invigorating listen all its own.

Over 18 tracks (the majority of which run under 2 minutes or less), Hurley weaves a variety of distressed, alien textures that underscore key elements of Lynch’s vision: Intro Symbol Wind is a subtle cue that rests under Badalamenti’s iconic title theme (appearing when Laura Palmer’s face materializes through the waterfalls), while the terrifying Electricity One and Electricity Two immediately brings to mind the Woodsman (of “got a light?” fame).

Click here for Love and Time Lost: A Possible Endgame to Twin Peaks The Return

Most of the tracks from Anthology Resource don’t resemble actual songs–they’re not supposed to. Haunting entries like Weighted Room/Choral Swarm, Eastern European Symphonic Mood No.1  and Tone/Slow Speed Prison/Low Room are designed to embellish and enhance Lynch’s haunting visuals. Hurley, a longtime Lynch collaborator ably exploits the auteur’s obsessions with industrial sounds and uses them to unsettling effect throughout.

The closest tracks that do qualify as musical compositions include Night Electricity Theme, which channels Badalamenti by way of Brian Eno and the eerie Americana of Slow One Chord Blues (Interior).

 

 

Anthology Resource Vol.1 isn’t just a fascinating listen, it should also serve as an informative experience for Twin Peaks fans–helping them to appreciate all the disparate elements that went into making David Lynch and Mark Frost’s exquisite and frustrating series, which has somehow managed to be even stranger and more addicting than its original run.

It shows just how much sound design matters, bridging the space between score, soundtrack and dialogue–adding that intangible yet integral sonic texture that makes the show such a bewitching, nightmarish blast.

Buy ‘Anthology Resource Vol. 1: △△’ on Amazon: