Continuing for Women's History Month, we return to Julee Cruise, one of my college-era favorites. I already reviewed "Floating Into the Night" many years ago and while I should eventually cover her other LPs, I wanted to revisit her first LP by highlighting an even rarer entry in her catalog. "Industrial Symphony No. 1" is concert/play and a continuation of David Lynch's work with Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise. It begins with Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern effectively reprising their roles from Wild at Heart, and then enters a dream sequence featuring songs and characters from Twin Peaks where Cruise lip syncs to studio versions of her songs. The opening song, "Up in Flames", would be released on her 1993 LP "The Voice of Love", but otherwise "I Float Alone", "Into the Night", "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart", and "The World Spins" all appear on her 1989 debut "Floating Into the Night". There are additional interstitial instrumental tracks that as far as I know only appear here.
I love Julee Cruise, and her work with Badalamenti and Lynch is amazing, but unfortunately their collective output is pretty limited. So if you're a fan, you'll want to watch this video. If you're not a fan, I'm not sure it will make you a fan. For me, "Industrial Symphony No. 1" is simultaneously engaging and indistinguishable from a parody of an art film: smoke, strobe lights, a half-naked woman furtively scurrying about the stage, Cruise singing from the trunk of a car, Michael J. Anderson sawing on a log and then doing spoken word, a person on stilts, and for most of the time at least one cast member in the air.
I don't actually have a copy of "Industrial Symphony No. 1", but Terry had a VHS copy (2020-10-18 edit: turns out I have a copy). Since I'm a completist I'll eventually get a copy and probably pay too much, but Julee Cruise is a treasure and we should celebrate her entire canon.
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