Dean Hurley - Concrete Feather (2020)

Lynch protégé and Twin Peaks sound designer Dean Hurley coaxes an incredible puzzlebox of atmospheres and mood pieces in a killer contribution to our Documenting Sound series, perhaps its most cinematic and neon-lit instalment thus far. It sounds like a smudged and overdubbed copy of the BoC Maxima tape, with added iridescence.

Across almost 40 minutes we transition from aerosolised synths to romantic chromatics, thru to NWW-style severed rhythms and fading glimmers of hope, ‘Concrete Feather’ epitomises Hurley’s prized knack for nuanced instrumental story-telling in the finest and most engrossing style we could imagine. Against the backdrop of the Hollywood film industry that has primed us for as long as we can all remember, the music spans a panorama of lush, mirage-like choral pads and starry flickers thru to gloaming nightmare sequences and screwed drums, while touching on some of the dankest synth tones this side of his ‘Anthology Resource’ volumes or indeed his soundtrack work for Twin Peaks: The Return. It’s full of dread and a slowly unfolding sense of tragedy.