David Lynch and Chrystabell: Cellophane Memories

When the Internet hears a rumbling from David Lynch, resident master of the surreal, the news tends to arrive with the force of an anvil dropped from a jetliner. So when the filmmaker tweeted in late May 2024 that “something is coming along for you to see and hear,” hipsters around the world lost their collective shit. The final result of that tease, his new collaborative album with actress-singer Chrystabell, inevitably lacks the weight and scale of a Lynch movie. No song, no matter how dreamy, can compare with the drama lurking in the Red Room or Club Silencio. But without the baggage of expectation, Cellophane Memories is a fascinating piece of work—and easily one of his most cohesive front-to-back albums. Lynch seems to stumble ass-backwards into vibe—that’s a given. And all of the typical moves from his soundtracks are present here—the grimy blues and borderline-campy balladry so pivotal to his atmosphere. (“Two Lovers Kiss” is psychedelic doo-wop—and you can practically smell the old beer at the Twin Peaks Roadhouse.) But Chrystabell’s presence gives these songs an emotional through line, balancing out the whirring guitar tremolo and ambient synth pads with a bit of celestial beauty. Her voice is often twisted, mangled, reversed and piled into strange shapes—yet it still makes these ultra-Lynchy soundscapes feel a bit closer to actual songs, like on the impressionistic “You Know the Rest” and the grinding, dirt smeared “The Answers to the Questions.” No, it’s not a Lynch film. But it evokes many of the same moods.