Naked Lynch

Good or popular mash-ups have become quite rare after the scene retreated further into the underground or some producers went on to bigger, more legal things.

In this regard Mashed in Plastic came as a big, surprising bang! The idea to offer a full album mashing the dream-logic of David Lynch and the music of Angelo Badalamenti with other songs to create a consecutive listening experience could have easily turned into nightmare-logic.

There is always a big chunk of ambivalence in Lynch´s films and their reception.
Some say you either love or hate them, but I think this is not true. I´d say you can admire his strong sense for mood and obsessive imagery, be entertained by his craft and perverse meta-surrealism and still be annoyed by all of this at the very same time.


One positive thing about his films that almost everybody can agree on is the great use of music. The main compositions of Angelo Badalamenti and to a certain extent Lynch´s own work form a magical alliance with "borrowed" music and the moving images. (Although I never forgive him for allowing the dreadful Rammstein gaining international acclaim through the "Lost Highway"-Soundtrack)

Back to Mashed in Plastic. The whole project is remarkable for creating something that sounds like an interesting idea that is doomed to fail and turning it into a success on every level. The listening experience can be downloaded for free as a consecutive mix or as a package of individual songs.


Held together by Lynch´s own words, film dialogue and eerie sounds, the whole thing is highly complex, immaculately executed and challenging. As usual in this genre, not every song works perfectly, but when idea, ambition and craft do work, your jaw will drop and somebody might find it next to a severed ear in the front garden.

One should really listen to the whole experience in it´s entirety as it offers much more than it´s individual parts (be they good or bad).

There are a few of the usual acapella-suspects (Beatles, Kylie), some I usually avoid like the plague (Tori Amos) and some obvious from within the Lynch universe.

Highlights are the incredible "I´ll be there in Twin Peaks". Mashing the "Twin Peaks Theme", "Falling" with "I´ll be there" by Jackson 5 and some Leona Lewis. The effect is amazing and fits the season.

I´ll be there in Twin Peaks


Mashed in Plastic is much more than a listening experience. The presentation on the website is outstanding. There is a great mash-up photo to every song, extensive linernotes and -to top it all- there are videos to almost every song! These Youtube-videos will certainly guarantee that this project will receive a receptive audience beyond the mash-up scene.

In a way it is the definite "concept mash-up for grown-ups" and it might as well be the swan song for the genre. Anyway, it will be seen as a classic! Ear This!

Kylie said to Towa: German Bold Italic

Now if this isn´t high-concept...Japanese producer meets Australian "in limbo" popstar and they make a record about a typeface! Yes, a typeface! A non existing typeface!

Towa Tei, went back to Tokyo after leaving Deee-Lite and became a hipster phenomenon with his first solo album "Future listening" in 1995. Along with fellow japanese pop-stars Pizzicato Five he brought back Bossa Nova with a distinct hi-tech-twist to western metropolitans.

In 1997 Kylie Minogue was drying off after her success with Nick Cave and was about to re-establish herself as a sort of indie-brit-camp-pop-superstar, or something to that effect.
We all know it would take another three years and some wardrobe which was about to malfunction at any moment before that plan would work out.

I have no idea about the impact this collaboration made on the worldwide charts, but I think it was not exactly a smash. (O.K. it was a moderate hit in Japan).

Quite unfair, it should have been big! And here is why:

- Great, bouncy electro-house with big production
- Lyrics that mostly consist of the words "German", "bold" and "gut, ja?"
- Kylie as a demented Geisha (only Björk, Madonna and Aneka would have this idea!)
- Quirky Japanese who looks like Andy Warhol as a japanese mannequin and moves like a robot from Düsseldorf.
- Having Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra saying the words "German bold italic" and leading Kylie on a leash (sound cable), which is in itself a nod to YMO´s first album-cover.
- Video intro spoofs TV-sex ads and is done by The Gentle People.
- It uses bits of "Groove is in the Heart".
- It´s a song about a typeface!

So why wasn´t this a hit again???
Watch it and decide:



I could watch this over and over again and it sounds massive as a proper recording.
Anyway, they must have had so much fun that they came back for another colaboration "Sometimes Samurai" in 2005, which again samples YMO.

More on Towa Tei and colleagues coming soon.