Sound Design, Music and The Birth of Evil in Twin Peaks: The Return

Marshall, Kingsley ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2518-7305 and Loydell, Rupert ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2730-8489 (2018) Sound Design, Music and The Birth of Evil in Twin Peaks: The Return. In: Music & The Moving Image, 27 May 2018, NYU, New York.

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Abstract / Summary

The opening line in the first episode of Twin Peaks: The Return, spoken by Carel Struycken’s character, asks FBI
Special Agent Dale Cooper to “Listen to the sounds”. Throughout the series, writer, director and sound designer David
Lynch deploys a complex combinaton of sound and visuals in order to depict mysticism, the impossible and bring to life
the birth and spread of evil in the Twin Peaks universes. Paying attention specifically to the predominantly dialoguefree
episode eight of the series, we will explore how Lynch makes use of intricate sound design, score, existing source
music and music performed within the diegesis in order to complete his intricate visuals. We explore how the episode,
and series as a whole, makes intertextual connections to conventional and experimental film form in addition to
extending upon established Lynchian worlds, and how manipulation of sounds within the series lends an otherworldly
quality to the image.

Kingsley Marshall and Rupert Loydell, a musician/writer and writer/painter respectively, will use the words of
David Lynch, composer Angelo Badalamenti and sound supervisors Dean Hurley and Ron Eng, together with critiques
of Lynch’s work, to better understand the complex, alienating world of Twin Peaks, and the significance of sound and
music within the construction of place, space, character and narrative in the most recent series.

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