It’s difficult to overstate the cultural impact of Twin Peaks 25 years ago. Transferring his art-house cinema ethic to the small screen, David Lynch’s cerebral, surrealist murder mystery series towered like a desert skyscraper over the wastelands of mainstream US TV drama.
A large part of the series’ appeal lay in the hypnotic, spectral soundtrack that won a Grammy for its composer, Angelo Badalamenti. Invited earlier this year to reinterpret that music for a Lynch retrospective at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Californian avant-noise trio Xiu Xiu are now taking their work on a world tour.
Where Badalamenti’s original soundtrack was all romantic strings, airy percussion and camply twanging guitar, Xiu Xiu’s approach is far more atonal. It’s fair to say that where he shimmered, they shudder: Angela Seo preserves the haunting melody of Laura Palmer’s Theme on electric piano, but band leader Jamie Stewart lays waste to his cymbals with seemingly murderous intent.
Many of Badalamenti’s lighter pieces are transmuted into Sunn O)))-style drone-rock or art-jazz, which is true to Twin Peaks’ subversive spirit but rather less fun to listen to. In truth, Stewart’s vocals are also an acquired taste. Replacing Julee Cruise’s gossamer whisper, his overwrought falsetto on Falling recalls a rather different 1990s icon: Vic Reeves’s club singer.
A valiant but fitful evening ends with percussionist Shayna Dunkelman reading aloud from Laura Palmer’s secret diary, before Stewart croons 1940s novelty song Mairzy Doats in the style of Laura’s demonically possessed father, Leland. With Lynch now filming a third series of Twin Peaks, Xiu Xiu’s homage is timely, but at times tonight it’s tempting to slip out for a damn fine cup of coffee.
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