Donna approaches the bar with her arms stretched back.
Audrey runs a finger along the rim of her coffee cup and Angelo Badalamenti’s mystery pop pours from the jukebox in the corner of the RR Diner, Twin Peaks. The eccentric makeup of the score permeates the scene, wrapping itself in the vintage 80s café decor, the presence of the actresses, and the kookiness of the log lady spitting out her gum, or is it resin? With its steady bass and percussive finger-clicking, “Audrey’s Dance” completely engulfs the setting — the song becomes entwined in a fragile moment that melts a seal across the characters’ relationship.
That’s Lucrecia Dalt speaking to Adam Harper about her sophomore offering, Commotus. The conversation comes in the form of an essay, which Harper uses as a vessel to dwell on apocalyptic themes he pulls from the cover art. The picture in question frames a shot of the 1935 Texas Dust Bowl as some ferocious storm clouds rise above a farmhouse. Naturally, doom-laden association is beckoned by the image, but the interviewer drives at end-times as though they were symbolic to the music itself, which seems to glaze over the sonic layers of quirkiness and mischief that come nestled among feelings of trepidation and wonder. I like to think of Commotus as a soundtrack to the aftermath, where the dust has settled and people are beginning to evaluate livelihoods left behind: the reintroduction of routine to an exclusion zone.
Wherever those influences stem from, the album is fascinating because its most cherished, spectral qualities are permitted to mingle with a textured friskiness, where the radiant sensuality of “Conversa” is balanced alongside the jarring ploy of “Multitud” and where the echoed finger clicking of “Esplendor” is accompanied by a generous helping of vocal purr. Dalt’s voice sounds remarkable, by the way, particularly when pressing her darkest lyrics: “I’ve been doing deals with the devil,” she confides over the subtle percussion underlay of “Turmoil.” “Yeah, I’ve been doing business with the devil.” Such moments amplify the Twin Peaks fixation somehow, that genial dicing of fine-spun skylarkery with outright horror, a portly fellow grooving down a school corridor and the announcement of Laura Palmer’s death on the principal’s PA system. Any feelings of warmth or comfort are kept at bay by the creepiness of what the material substantiates; it’s a difficult feat, but one that Dalt has achieved impeccably well. Commotus is an accomplished release that leads not towards a path of apocalyptic strife, but to a place both wonderful and strange.