Articles
Chantal Acda
The Balustrade Ensemble
Ten Favourite Labels 2015

Albums
Chantal Acda
Akisai
Asamisimasa
At
The Balustrade Ensemble
Basic Soul Unit
Bersarin Quartett
Bing & Ruth
Wil Bolton
Ian William Craig
Cryo Chamber Collab.
Dikeman Noble Serries
Paul Ellis
Ensemble Economique
Reiko Füting
Jim Ghedi
Hakobune & Dirk Serries
Mary Halvorson
Chihei Hatakeyama
Iskra String Quartet
Mano Le Tough
Deborah Martin
Lubomyr Melnyk
Multicast Dynamics
James Murray
Mute Forest
New Order
OKADA
Ø [Phase]
Perils
Pole
port-royal
Post Office
Rayons
Nadia Reid
Max Richter
Will Samson
Time Is a Mountain
Michael Trommer
Tuxedo. / Cult W. No Name
Understated Theory
Zero T

Compilations / Mixes / Remixes / Reissues
Sylvain Chauveau
John Foxx & Harold Budd
Mathew Jonson
Le Freak

EPs / Cassettes / DVDs / Mini-Albums / Singles
Mr. Bios
Oneirogen
Seba
Zero T / LSB / T. Prose / FD

Tuxedomoon / Cult With No Name: Blue Velvet Revisited
Crammed Discs

This forty-second volume in Crammed Discs' Made To Measure series allows cinephiles to re-live David Lynch's Blue Velvet in a new and different way. No, Blue Velvet Revisited is not a misguided attempt to supplant the powerful orchestral material Angelo Badalamenti created for Lynch's film; instead, it's an original soundtrack created by Tuxedomoon and Cult With No Name in 2015 for Blue Velvet Revisited, a documentary based on footage shot in 1985 by German filmmaker Peter Braatz on the film's Wilmington, North Carolina set at Lynch's own invitation. The documentary is an invaluable document, given that it includes exclusive, never-before-seen material Braatz culled from three months of unrestricted film set access, specifically footage as well as interviews and over a thousand photographs (some of them shown in a striking twelve-page booklet included in the CD release). For the record, an earlier version titled No Frank In Lumberton was released in 1988 to limited distribution, but Braatz's updated treatment is the definitive one of the two, especially considering that over seventy percent of the original on-set footage was never used.

The hour-long suite created by collaborators Tuxedomoon, the long-standing experimental outfit formed in San Francisco by multi-instrumentalists Blaine L. Reininger and Steven Brown, and Cult With No Name, the London, UK group featuring ‘post-punk electronic balladeers' Erik Stein and Jon Boux, is satisfying, too, even if it doesn't hit with as much force as Lynch's film. Of course, anyone familiar with it will respond immediately to track titles such as “Lumberton” and “A Candy Colored Clown,” while “Now It's Dark” and “Do It For Van Gogh” can't help but call to mind images of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) and Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle Maclachlan) locked in their intense psychological and physical battles. An additional selling-point is the participation of John Foxx, who's credited with one of the soundtrack's thirteen tracks, and the cover image of Beaumont inspecting the severed ear is worth the purchase price alone.

It's hard not to think of the music Badalamenti composed for Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me when weeping strings, flugelhorn, and tenor sax woozily murmur throughout the opening “The Slow Club,” and the album's noir-ish side also comes to the fore during the slow jazz swing of “So Fucking Suave.” In “Lumberton,” the musicians pay homage to the film's small-town setting in an elegant classical treatment replete with a dramatic violin solo and sympathetic piano support. In contrast to the generally low-key character and slow tempo of the album, the muscular “A Candy Colored Clown” kicks things up a notch with an uptempo jazz romp, while Foxx's “Lincoln Street” parts company with the other tracks in drenching reverb-tinted piano with ambient-electronic atmospheres. Among the standout tracks are “Do It For Van Gogh,” a dreamy ambient-electronica setting that receives a strong boost from a haunting harmonica motif; “Until the Robins Come,” a haunting, strings-heavy setting boosted by memorable soprano sax playing; and “Don,” for its expressive, gypsy-toned violin soloing.

November 2015