A journey deep into an America halfway between desolation and dreams, Bluebob is a rough disc forged in greasy industrial blues and also the new project of a multidisciplinary artist, a painter turned director by the name of David Lynch.
Recorded in a Lynchian grotto, a studio located in the cellar of his house on the top of Los Angeles, David Lynch and John Neff—his sound engineer turned musical alter ego—first create a structure made with drum machines and samples. Then, sitting in a chair, his guitar posed backward on his knees, Lynch improvises with a great deal of feedback, while Neff, bass player and guitarist, recites ends of scattered texts resulting from the director's imagination and collected for years in one Pandora box.
More than a complement of his films, Bluebob officiates like a musical "remake" trading Lynch's camera and a tractor for his texts and industrial music as a vehicle. The filmmaker takes these lost roads that he is fond of, from Straight Story to Lost Highway, and complete his voyage in the city of the lost angels, his town, Los Angeles. In some dark and dusty alleys, he has strange and shady encounters. His universe is populated with girls in pink sweaters, guns, alcohol, brawls and meetings with the law with Americana or Los Angeles always in the background. It would even appear that Beavis and Butthead make an appearance, unless it's one of these evil dwarves or Bob.
If Bluebob's musical direction surprises some, antipodal to his previous collaboration with the Gothic Lux Vivens and of the delicacy of Angelo Badalamenti's universe, it is however logical when one knows that Trent Reznor (NIN) and Marilyn Manson belong to his circle. While Lynch approaches this disc in the manner of an artist, rejecting all rules to focus on pure improvisation, the result isn't as innovative as his contribution to cinema. 30 years earlier, Lou Reed, John Cale and the Velvet Underground, the founding myth of noisy rock and industrial, cleared the musical landscape in the same way. What's noticeable however is that Bluebob resonates with the influence of bands and artists that are innovators in their genre. The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Pixies, Ministry and Tom Waits cross and are blended in Lynch's music and bathed by his emblematic strangeness. Sometimes the influence of his soundtracks is heard, especially the famous haunting psychedelic piece from Twin Peaks—the movie. Does this artistic authenticity allow Bluebob to coexist beyond the shadow of a director and his fans, to become a full musical entity and find its own public? The answer is yes.
David Lynch & John Neff Bluebob
