JOHNNY JEWEL's Windswept featuring music from the new season of Twin Peaks. JOHNNY JEWEL's Windswept featuring music from the new season of Twin Peaks. Housed in gatefold jackets and pressed on 180-gram blue vinyl.
Equal parts compilation and soundtrack, Windswept felt of a piece with the work Johnny Jewel released while fans waited for albums by Glass Candy and Chromatics. With those projects and on his own, Jewel made the most of his flair for evoking and stylizing; Windswept is no exception, but this time, he dials back the homages to Italo disco, John Carpenter, and Goblin in order to channel the moody, slow-motion heartache of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti. While many other artists have borrowed from this creative team, Jewel is in the rare position to give back; Twin Peaks: The Return, the third season of Lynch's much-loved TV series, featured almost as much music from Jewel as it did from Badalamenti.
Fortunately, his interpretation of the show's too-dreamy sound fits in perfectly. "Stardust" conjures the town's rustling pines and flashing stoplights, while "Windswept"'s plaintive sax, brushed drums, and synth strings are beautifully restrained, letting the mood and melody unfold without a trace of irony. "The Crimson Kiss" adds the vibraphone that lent a smoky mystique to the series' original music, and "Between Worlds" celebrates the synth strings that defined Badalamenti's music and glow in a way that a real string section can't. All of these elements shine on "The Flame" and "Motel," which is credited to Glass Candy even though Ida No's vocals are nowhere to be found. That isn't the case on Chromatics' hyper-romantic version of "Blue Moon," which is led by Ruth Radelet's silky voice and punctuated by a clever interpolation of the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody" on the glockenspiel. Desire's "Saturday" is another standout that lets the group -- and Megan Louise's wistful singing -- take on different dimensions than they usually do. Occasionally, Jewel lets Windswept's Lynchian vibe dissipate a little: the icy electronics of Symmetry's "Television Snow," the orchestral dread of "Insomnia" and the hypnotic "Strobe Lights" and "Missing Pages," are more akin to Jewel's previous soundtrack work on Lost River and other projects. Still, Windswept is held together by its try-anything feel; unburdened by expectations, Jewel flexes his creativity in ways that his other projects don't always allow him to.
| A1 | –Johnny Jewel | Television Snow | 1:23 |
| A2 | –Johnny Jewel | Windswept | 3:33 |
| A3 | –Desire (16) | Saturday | 3:19 |
| A4 | –Johnny Jewel | Missing Pages | 2:51 |
| A5 | –Johnny Jewel | The Crimson Kiss | 2:55 |
| A6 | –Johnny Jewel | Strobe Lights | 2:01 |
| A7 | –Johnny Jewel | Heaven | 2:03 |
| B1 | –Johnny Jewel | Slow Dreams | 3:11 |
| B2 | –Johnny Jewel | Insomnia | 1:29 |
| B3 | –Johnny Jewel | Motel | 3:11 |
| B4 | –Johnny Jewel | Between Worlds | 1:37 |
| B5 | –Johnny Jewel | The Flame | 3:19 |
| B6 | –Johnny Jewel | Stardust | 3:13 |
| B7 | –Chromatics | Blue Moon | 4:09 |
