Music to think by: Q&A with David Lynch on his debut album (Wired UK)

via wired.co.uk

"This article was taken from the December 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

David Lynch has made cult films and Tv series such as Twin Peaks. His debut album is no less psychologically intense.

Wired has a (surreal) chat with Lynch about his music and the mind.

Wired: The subconscious is a recurring theme in your visual work. How has it translated onto your album, Crazy Clown Time?

David Lynch: Well, I always say if it's subconscious, we don't know it: you can feel it, you can sense it. But when an idea enters the conscious mind, you really know it. So in music, the ideas come along in a flow -- until you get something that feels correct.

Listening to the album encourages the mind to wander. Is music more effective than film at penetrating the subconscious?
A film can get to where music does -- and that's one thing I love about cinema, it can "say" abstractions. But music is pure abstraction and it's really beautiful. You can get things where people weep and they don't know why, but the music is so powerful it can stir the mind.

You sing throughout the album, manipulating your voice. How do you think digital tools affect identity?
These tools are there to help you get it to feel correct. And so the more tools you have, the better off you are.

So all the digital tools we have available, whether it's Twitter or Facebook, allow us to correct ourselves?
Yes, exactly. They may not represent us, but they represent something that feels correct. And so with a song, you work on it, but it doesn't feel right. You keep working on it and you use all these tools and you experiment. You act and then you react until, lo and behold, it feels correct.

As a Twitter user, do you think social media is leading to a super-consciousness?
There's an ocean of pure vibrance -- fullness of consciousness -- at the base of all matter and mind. Always has been there, always will be. Now, if you heighten that in the individual, it leads to enlightenment -- that's super-consciousness. If you heighten that in the world, it brings a higher collective consciousness. But it won't happen because of Twitter...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales