Cellophane Memories by David Lynch and Chrystabell (Album Review)

David Lynch is a name that can’t be taken lightly, especially in conversations about art. A man who exemplified the very meaning of "the art life," his genre-bending films are defined by his signature surrealism and the way he taps into the beauty that lies in the duality of light and dark. So when an album was released on August 2, 2024—just a few months before his passing on January 16, 2025—this collaboration between Lynch and Chrystabell naturally carried those very signature Lynchian elements into a musical medium. All of Lynch’s work is highly specific in nature; one can love one of his films and completely dislike another. When I first heard the title track from this album back in August, it didn’t resonate with me at all. It was far outside my tastes, and I felt no connection to it. But after the death of one of my favorite filmmakers, I was drawn back to Cellophane Memories—a title evoking a collage of memories and nostalgia—and decided to give it another listen. This time, I found in it the very qualities that draw me to his films. It felt like the perfect tribute to his life and work, with Chrystabell’s vocals as the perfect cherry on top.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Lynch has made music—how could it be? He’s known for using any medium he can to express his ideas, whether it be films, animation, furniture, paintings, or music. And he’s been doing this for decades. Even in his films, he’s always been at the forefront of selecting and producing music. He is famously known for his collaborations with the late Angelo Badalamenti, who worked on the sound design for many of Lynch’s projects, including the Twin Peaks TV series and films like Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet. He also worked with the great Julee Cruise, creating music for Twin Peaks, including tracks like Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart, which embody his signature style of moody dream pop with repetitive electronic drums and synths. These elements were also central to his solo recording career in albums like Crazy Clown Time(2011) and The Big Dream(2013). This isn’t the first time he’s collaborated with Chrystabell either. In 1999, an agent introduced her to Lynch, which sparked a fruitful creative relationship. Together, they released two experimental dream pop albums: This Train (2011) and Somewhere in the Nowhere (2016). Then, Cellophane Memories(2024) was born from a vision: “On a starry night, David Lynch was taking a walk through the dark woods when he witnessed a flood of bright light coming over the tops of the trees. The otherworldly vision was the seed for Cellophane Memories”. The album received critical acclaim as Marc Weidenbaum of Pitchfork writes, “The Texas singer uses experimental vocal collages set against actual Lynchian backdrops to create a uniquely off-kilter kind of evanescence.”

To me, the album cover perfectly represents what this album truly is—an open flower, inviting us into a story. This wouldn’t be surprising, as Lynch has always been drawn to such visual motifs.

Think of Blue Velvet, where its bizarre murder mystery begins with Jeffrey Beaumont discovering an ear in a field. When asked why he chose an ear, Lynch explained that it represented an opening to him.

In Cellophane Memories, the opening flower invites us into a story of longing—a collage of memories, all connected by a thread that echoes through Chrystabell’s layered vocals. Each lyric overlaps, rapidly beginning over the next. The lyrics themselves are simple and innocent, almost as if Chrystabell and Lynch are simply sitting in a room, reminiscing about the past. One of the tracks, You Know The Rest, captures this perfectly:

For dinner, it was meat and potatoes
I went to bed early
One day I know I’ll get it
The only garage was full
They walked along the road
It was evening and warm
There was a helicopter flying overhead
I looked at the time
It was past 8, past 8
The moon was full
When he came around the corner

The song also carries Lynch’s signature atmosphere, instantly reminding me of the Twin Peaks intro. The nostalgic warmth of his synths feels particularly meaningful in this posthumous context.

This eerie, repetitive electronic sound is also deeply present in one of the album’s singles, The Answers to the Question. The song feels just as surreal as a still from a Lynch film. It embodies the very duality he always expressed—light contrasted with darkness, as the lyrics suggest:

Dark clouds roiling above in a dark wind
But then she saw him
She saw him in light
She saw him in love

The second single, which also serves as the album’s closing track, Sublime Eternal Love, feels like the perfect meditation on the love that Lynch embodied. He often spoke about how Transcendental Meditation helped him see the essence of existence—that everything, including light and dark, beginnings and endings, was interconnected. He saw beauty in acknowledging these truths and believed love was at the center of it all. Not just romantic love, but something boundless, something sublime that moved through everything.

Sublime Eternal Love sounds like the perfect ending to Lynch’s body of work because it encapsulates everything he ever expressed—an acknowledgment of life's mystery:

He fell down crying
And trembling
Calling out he cried
Cried for understanding
Voices came
And the noise turned to music
And the notes had feeling
A feeling of love
A sublime love
Eternal love, sublime eternal love