Farewell, Angelo Badalamenti

Pictured: Badalamenti (left) and director David Lynch (right)

On the 11^th, I saw that Angelo Badalamenti had died. As a fan of moodiness and reverb, it was sad to see an artist adjacent to the Doo-Wop of the Damned echo on to that great, permanent stillness.

Badalamenti knew how to provide sounds that let the expansive, strange, and wonderful dreams of David Lynch breathe onscreen. While I first conceptualized his music as being part of the Pacific Northwest (Twin Peaks), the first Lynch movie that ever caught me was the quintessentially Angeleno Lost Highway. While Badalamenti might have been more-frequently associated with moody, foggy, reverb-laden soundscapes, his compositions for the Trent Reznor-produced Lost Highway showed his flexibility in that he could do lounge or more straight-ahead, less-atmospheric movie scoring:

For me, my favorite Badalamenti composition was his transfixing and transporting soundtrack to Mulholland Drive:

His was a trademark and singular sound as the clairvoyant to the soundtracks of David Lynch’s dreams.