Thought Gang (DAVID LYNCH & ANGELO BADALAMENTI) Share “A Real Indication” Video From New Album
Birthed during the 1991 recording sessions for the Fire Walk With Me OST, the lost album finally sees release 2.5 decades after it was originally recorded
Prior to Twin Peaks, Badalamenti had already handled the music for Lynch‘s 1986 film, Blue Velvet, but their work together on the groundbreaking television program yielded something even more timeless. As further evidenced during it’s return with a brand new season last year, which included a live performance at the end of each episode, the musical component to the eerie, supernatural whodunnit was always an essential one. Based on how everything on the show fit together in such a remarkable way and the expansive world unfolded, there was no question that it must have been an inspiring time for those involved with the show’s creation, so it’s not surprising to discover that much more came from the collaboration between Lynch and Badalamenti that, not only didn’t make it on screen, but that the general public had never even been aware before. The pair would ultimately refer to their musical partnership as “Thought Gang,” a moniker under which they would create a self-titled full-length studio album that will, only now, see it’s release, two-and-a-half-decades after being recorded.
The press release elaborates:
By the time Twin Peaks’ second season had aired and Fire Walk With Me had just began principle production, Thought Gang had been born. The esoteric jazz side-project of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti evolved from the seeds of Twin Peaks’ trademark slow cool jazz and blossomed into more experimental pastures: horizon-less vistas of acid-soaked free-jazz, laced with spoken-word narratives and sprawling noisescapes.
Two Thought Gang tracks, which appear on the album — “A Real Indication’”and “The Black Dog Runs at Night” — initially found their way onto the Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me motion picture soundtrack. The idea for the Thought Gang project and album was formed during that original 1991 recording session that created “A Real Indication.” The story goes that, after the initial instrumental track was laid to tape, Lynch remained unsure as to who he would find to sing the lyrics that he’d written for it. He was hesitant when Badalamenti volunteered himself. “I’d heard Angelo sing before…he used to sing on demos and things…I knew what Angelo sounded like and I thought he was going to embarrass himself…I thought there’s no way this was gonna work.” Once Angelo went into his talk-singing style delivery, however, David was so enthusiastic about the results that he was sent into such a fit of hysterical laughter that it, actually, induced a hernia. The director describes the incident by claiming that “it was like a lightbulb exploded in [his] stomach.” “Angelo was feeling it. He was feeling it…we hit the button and he just took off!” His straight ahead, yet intermittently punctuated, vocals fit perfectly on top of the smoky jazz that supported it. This is the moment credited with the birth of Thought Gang and the realization that it would become a whole new project unto itself, splintering off from everything else that the two ever done together before. Principal photography for Fire Walk With Me began weeks later, with Lynch suffering from that hernia throughout it’s production.
The following video for “A Real Indication” was originally filmed way back in 1992. Recorded on Hi-8 tape, the black and white musical short features Angelo Badalamenti reciting his vocals while wandering the streets.
The majority of the remaining material on the LP was recorded in sporadic chunks between May of 1992 throughout 1993. While working in the studio on a number of other projects, Lynch and Badalamenti would jam the work into whatever remaining time or space was available. The material would also find itself pieced out and distributed into various projects over the years. The press release breaks it down track-by-track in detail.
During a September 1992 recording date for Lynch’s HBO miniseries Hotel Room, ’Logic & Common Sense’ was recorded. “We would book a session for something, and then go off and do other things [toward the end],” Lynch recalls. “Once the players were in the room, we’d make hay while the sun shined.” Each player involved was a unique wealth of talent that enabled the improvisational approach to the recordings to flourish. Improvisation had always been an important tool in Lynch’s repertoire, and an early title for ‘Logic & Common Sense’ (originally entitled ’Headless Chicken’) reveals the initial directive the musicians were given in order to elicit their performance. Bassist Reggie Hamilton remembers distinctly how Lynch set the tone of the improvisation, recalling the brief but descriptive sentence: “he said imagine you’re a chicken with your head cut off running around with a thousand bennies shoved down your throat!” What followed was a frenetic, anphetomine-esque musical conversation between seasoned players for exactly 3 minutes 32 seconds before the end of the 2” tape whipped across the Studer’s play head, flopping against the take-up reel and cutting the recording short. Every inch captured from that performance can be heard on the final record, down to the roll out.
Similarly, the sprawling ‘Summer Night Noise’ began with a verbal brief outlining the piece’s desired structure: “I would just tell [the guys], it starts out really, really quiet…think summer night: insects, a breeze, grass blowing in the wind…and in the distance a storm is coming…and the storm is getting closer…and closer…and the storm breaks loose and it’s just a violent summer storm with thunder and lightning…and it goes and goes and goes and then calms down and drifts away…and then we’re back to a moist, humid quiet.” “I would tell them a bunch of stuff and then they would play that. It was them catching the thing and painting a picture with their instruments and talent.”
In the years following, fragments and working versions of Thought Gang material would make appearances in everything from a Lynch-helmed Adidas commercial to scenes in Hotel Room,Mulholland Drive, INLAND EMPIRE, deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me and most expansively Showtime’s third season of Twin Peaks. Both ‘Frank 2000,’ ‘Summer Night Noise’ as well as an alternate instrumental mix of ‘Logic and Common Sense’ would score scenes from season three and aid in defining the show’s distinctly experimental, noise-tilted soundtrack. “It’s sort of like jet-fueled jazz in a weird way…but it’s all based on stories,” says Lynch. “It’s Modern Music.” Those two words seem to efficiently capture both Thought Gang’s essence and distinctively genre-less genre. Quite often, music that finds release beyond its decade of creation can experience a degree of resultant aural patina…something that happens when songs marinate deep in the ether of time. Perplexingly, Thought Gang retains a contemporary quality difficult to quantify. “I actually had the name Thought Gang a long time before we even recorded anything for it” Lynch casually remarks…and, fittingly, the resulting album somehow still sounds ‘modern’ and will continue to remain ‘modern,’ decades upon decades after its creation.
Thought Gang is available today (Nov 2, 2018) on vinyl, compact disc, and digital formats. Colored vinyl variations include a “Steel” colored pressing (Limited to 1000 for retail stores), as well as a “Monkey Fur” edition (Limited to 750 only available through Sacred Bones direct).
Order now from Sacred Bones and Bandcamp.