The empire of the mind

David Lynch, who passed away on 16 January 2025 at the age of 78, was not just a visionary director. Throughout his long career, the genius from Missoula always built his projects on a deep interweaving of image and music. As he put it in an interview: “For me, cinema is sound and image moving together through time”. And it could hardly be otherwise for a man who described himself, seemingly paradoxically, as a “non-musician”, yet who always paid special attention to the musical dimension of his work. From the bizarre experiments of “Eraserhead” to the golden partnership with Angelo Badalamenti, born with “Blue Velvet” and sealed by “Twin Peaks” and “Mulholland Drive“, from his longtime singer-muses (Isabella Rossellini, Chrysta Bell, Julee Cruise) to more recent ones (Au Revoir Simone), from his flirtation with rock on Lost Highway (Bowie, Reznor, Smashing Pumpkins) to his own extra-cinematic productions, blessed by new icons such as Karen O, Lykke Li and Trentemoller. It is no coincidence that his family chose to remember him, in their commemorative post, with a picture of him holding a guitar.

So let's remember the peerless American director with a journey through his musical universe in 23 tracks, in this episode of Rock in Onda, the show hosted by Claudio Fabretti on the digital airwaves of Radio Città Aperta. Letting his Empire of the mind infect us once again.

Listen to or download the podcast for free:

The Empire of the Mind – The Musical Universe of David Lynch

The bond between image and music was, in the work of David Lynch, an inseparable one. So much so that the phrase "Lynchian atmospheres" (used to describe sounds suspended between noir and electronica) has become a critical cliché, overused in thousands of reviews. A refined connoisseur of every genre – from pop to the avant-garde – the director from Missoula always considered a strong sonic component essential to the impact of his films: from the bizarre experiments of "Eraserhead", carried out on his own alongside sound engineer Alan Splet, to the decisive encounter with Angelo Badalamenti, author of soundtracks that are now the stuff of legend ("Blue Velvet", "Twin Peaks", "Mulholland Drive" etc.), from the gallery of unsettling muse-chanteuses (Isabella Rossellini, Julee Cruise, Chrysta Bell, Au Revoir Simone), to his flirtation with rock on the Lost Highway (Bowie, Reznor, Smashing Pumpkins) all the way to the parade of stars on the Roadhouse stage in the return to Twin Peaks, and to the albums he wrote himself ("Crazy Clown Time", "The Big Dream") with the support of new pop icons who joined his court (Karen O, Lykke Li, Trentemoller): the musical universe of David Lynch in 23 tracks.

P.S. This program was put together before the news of David Lynch's death broke, and we're presenting it again here as a tribute to his memory.

Remember to subscribe to the Rock in Onda Facebook page, where you can always find downloadable podcasts, along with full tracklists and all the news about the show.

Feel free to send us comments, suggestions and ideas for future episodes, via Facebook or by email at: rockinonda@ondarock.it We'd be glad to build future tracklists with your input too.

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04/04/2026