The Null Device

Much has been said about the legacy of David Lynch's Twin Peaks; now WIRED has a piece on the series' musical legacy, specifically on the shoegazer genre:

The series made a major impact, admitted Swervedriver front man Adam Franklin recently to me during an interview on the reunion of bands from the late '80s and early '90s, including those who have yet to announce a comeback. "Everyone was watching that show," Franklin says. "Angelo Badalamenti had a huge influence on the shoegaze sound."

Meanwhile, Cocteau Twins' architect Robin Guthrie and ambient composer Harold Budd's score for the underrated 2004 film Mysterious Skin sounds like it came right out of the Twin Peaks playbook. But the feedback loop isn't that simple: The Cocteau Twins collaborated much earlier with Budd on the 1986 classic The Moon and the Melodies, whose haunting, majestic track "She Will Destroy You" sounds like it was specifically built for Laura Palmer. And it's well-known that Lynch was a dedicated fan of the Twins before Twin Peaks existed. He made it official when he inserted This Mortal Coil's chilling "Song to the Siren," ethereally delivered by Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, into his 1997 film Lost Highway.

And on: L.A.-based Hypnagogia Films is working on a documentary about the shoegaze sound, called Beautiful Noise, and has conducted scores of interviews with My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins and many more bands from the either side of that splendid period. Hypnagogia principals Eric Green and Sarah Ogletree recently told me in an interview that they are hard at work chasing down Lynch for a chat, one that may put the puzzle of the period together for them at last.

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Robin Guthrie, the guitar-pedal wizard from the Cocteau Twins and pioneer of all things swirly and æthereal, has now had a hand at filmmaking. You may not be surprised to find that his first film appears to be the visual equivalent of his music:

It has been exhaustively assembled with the same craft which Robin has used in the sonic world for years, an interweaving and layering of images, creating distinct moods which are reflected by the music being played - "improvised within the framework; dictated by the visuals", relying on layers of treated guitars, textures and sumptuously cyclic melodies"

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I went to see Mysterious Skin tonight. It's a recent American art-house film about two boys who had been sexually molested by a baseball coach in a small town; ten years on, one boy is a somewhat callous, promiscuous gay hustler (who looks a bit like a hipster Mr. Spock), while the other blocked out details of the experience, believing instead that he had been abducted by aliens, and is trying to figure out what really happened during those lost hours.

The posters on the Tube advertised it as "slinky-hipped and sleazy-poetic", which makes it sound like the next album from The Killers or something, though the impression is misleading; this is a thoughtful and often beautifully shot film, at times explicit and harrowing, though not gratuitously so. The soundtrack really added to it; it was by Robin Guthrie (from the Cocteau Twins) and Harold Budd, and also featured songs by Slowdive, Curve and Sigur Rós, and not an overhyped NME New Wave Revival band in earshot.

I wonder whether there was any connection between the Slowdive songs in the soundtrack and the other UFO contactee being named Avalyn.

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