David Lynch has said before, “We don’t do anything without an idea. So they’re beautiful gifts. And I always say, desiring an idea is like a bait on a hook. You can pull them in. And if you catch an idea that you love, that’s a beautiful, beautiful day.” Well, his latest album, once again with Texas singer and actress, Chrystabell—another one of Lynch’s strange and reaching creations—was inspired by a walk in the forest, with a bright light shining above him. Romantic rumination, a deep mysterious feeling: that was the impetus for an album that is ethereal, amorphous, and peppered with “Sublime Eternal Love.”

Chrystabell, a talented performer in her own right, is subject to Lynch’s vision in this work of art, whose mostly undecipherable soprano singing is like another ambient instrument. It loops over and under itself, to moving affect, like snowflake circling snowflake in the deep woods. It tells story after story, of a “sweet kiss turned” or a “helicopter flying overhead,” cinematic snippets to match the well-paced exposure of the mostly beat-less music.

Knowing Lynch’s unique visual and philosophical palette adds layers to this already layered music, though they are admittedly painting with many of the same colors throughout. A change-up in the album comes midway, with the song, “The Answers To The Questions,” with longtime collaborator Dean Hurley playing bass and drums along with Lynch’s guitar, which appears on a limited number of tracks. It is a high point of the album and begs the question, could Lynch have added a little more structure and definition to this album by adding drums and bass to more tracks.

But the swirling, amorphous feeling of much of the music on the album seems to be a deliberate choice. Chrystabell said regarding the music that it is meant to be “mood music,” and if there’s one thing that David Lynch can do, it’s create an otherworldly mood, what has been affectionately referred to as “Lynchian.” It is much more of an ambient offering than their previous collaboration, This Train, which sometimes recalled Portishead or something more jazzy in feel. This album is a different animal altogether, utilizing Chrystabel more as a ghostly instrument than a well-trained vocalist, repeating and overlapping important phrases throughout. It’s not the best produced (or best written) music out there, but it creates another fantastic world that is satisfying to inhabit, if only for a short time.

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