Julee Cruise - Floating Into the Night (1989)

There are many good movie soundtracks out there, but usually they are either instrumental score pieces, or collections of pop/rock songs from various bands and artists. In any case, they're usually not fantastic albums in their own right. To be fair, Floating Into the Night isn't a soundtrack per se, but many of the songs are most well known from David Lynch's movies or television series. Some of them were even made particularly for those productions. The album however, isn't a soundtrack to any single one of those productions. Songs of this album can be heard in Lynch's Blue Velvet, Industrial Symphony No.1 and television series Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks is where I know this album from. I always loved the music of Twin Peaks even when I didn't really know who the artist was, or that this album existed. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that not only was there a soundtrack album with these songs, there was an actual album featuring these songs and more.
All of the lyrics on the album have been written by David Lynch himself and the compositions are written by Angelo Badalamenti, a go-to composer for Lynch. However, the album is most clearly credited to Julee Cruise, the singer in these songs. When you hear the album, you can see why. Her amazing etherical voice sounds magical with loads of echo. This album wouldn't be what it is without that voice. Cruise's second album, The Voice of Love, continued the collaboration with Lynch and Badalamenti, but her later albums don't have this connection and, in my opinion, they're not as interesting. There's something about that collaboration that made these songs magical.

The album begins with almost the title-track Floating. This song has a rolling quiet bass line and subtle horns in the background leaving room for Cruise's clear and beautiful voice. This is a good opening track as it engages the listener with the sounds, but doesn't reveal all the power of the album immediately. The second song Falling is probably the most well-known song from the album as this was the song that was playing in the beginning of each Twin Peaks episode. Then again, the song becomes so much more powerful when you hear the amazing vocals in their entirety. I Remember has some beautifully soft organ sounds. The song has definite hypnotic qualities. Rocking Back Inside My Heart goes towards a bit more traditional pop song, while still maintaining the etherical feel of the album. There are some excellent saxophone sequences that give a bit of jazz to the song. Mysteries of Love was the first song that was written from this album. It was intentionally made to resemble This Mortal Coil's version of Song to the Siren, which Lynch would've wanted to use in Blue Velvet, but couldn't because it was too expensive. Into the Night is one of my absolutely favourite songs from the album. The dark and ominous sound of the song is quite incredible. I remember hearing this on Twin Peaks and being really encaptivated by it. I love it how the noisy jazz sequences break the pattern of softer than soft hypnosis. I Float Alone has organ sounds that sound like they might've influenced the whole career of the dream pop band Beach House a couple of decades later. The Nightingale goes back to the basics of the album with the clean and metallic sounding guitars. The Swan has amazing ambient-style organs and Cruise's voice soars above it all as haunting as ever. The album ends with The World Spins, which is a perfect last song as it sounds like a movie ending. The whispers are fantastic in it.

There is a nice music video for the song Falling. It features sequences from Twin Peaks along with some footage of Julee Cruise singing in front of a red velvet curtain from the series. When Twin Peaks originally aired, I was perhaps too young to appreciate all of the brilliance of the series. I mean, I did watch the whole series back then, but it wasn't until about 15 years later when I bought the DVD box that I watched the series again, when I completely fell in love with the aesthetics of the series, not in small part because of Julee Cruise's songs. 

I only bought this album a few years ago. I guess I hadn't realised that there was this fantastic actual album out there instead of just a soundtrack, because that exists as well. I would now claim that this album is one of the best albums released in the 80s.

Listen to the album on Spotify.