David Lynch Remembered; Sasha Supercharges Da Vinci: The Echoes Interview
David Lynch – KIEV, UKRAINE – Nov. 18, 2017
Echoes Weekend listeners hear our tribute to film director David Lynch. We lost a giant of the modern cultural world when he left the planet at 78 years old. He was born on January 20, 1946 in Missoula Montana, and left for the White Lodge on January 15, 2025. In between, he created a body of film and TV work that has been called visionary and enigmatic. He came to renown with the cult classic Eraserhead and followed up with the brilliant bio pic, Elephant Man. Then came Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive. We won’t talk about his Dune movie, even if it did have a Brian Eno track in it. But most impactfully, he’s known for his TV series Twin Peaks. Brilliant, surreal, dark, funny and disturbing, it still resonates 35 years after its debut. Another thing that resonates is its soundtrack, written by Angelo Badalamenti, who died in 2022. A mix of 50s slow rock, dark blues and psychedelic overtones, it is still influencing generations of musicians, from Moby to SUSS. All of Lynch’s soundtracks were brilliant mixes of original music and songs that could go from 60s crooners like actor Connie Stevens to Nine Inch Nails. Tonight we’ll hear a set that will include music from Twin Peaks, his album Lux Vivens with Jocelyn Montgomery adapting the 11th century hymns of Abbess Hildegard Von Bingen, and tracks from Mulholland Drive and Wild at Heart.
I was fortunate to interview Lynch at his Los Angeles home when the Lux Vivens album came out in 1998. We got a live performance there with singer Jocelyn Montgomery, who is now Jocelyn West. He was eloquent, thoughtful and a bit enigmatic. My only regret is the interview centered entirely on the album and we didn’t talk at all about his films or soundtracks, but we sure got into religion.
Also on many Echoes weekend stations, the spirit of Leonardo Da Vinci transformed into electronic sound by DJ and producer Sasha. Da Vinci Genius is an immersive exhibit on the life of the Renaissance polymath. Sasha created a score that ranges from orchestrally cinematic to electronically grooving. You won’t find the Renaissance music of Da Vinci’s era here.
Sasha: We did try taking kind of our modern instruments, our modern melodies and putting them onto kind of medieval instruments, but it ended up sounding like a bit of a pastiche, you know? The show itself is very technological and future-facing.
So is the music.
Sasha is a renowned DJ and record producer. He began his career in the late 1980s, playing acid house music, and rose to prominence in the 1990s through his partnership with fellow DJ John Digweed. Together, they produced influential mix albums like “Renaissance: The Mix Collection” and the “Northern Exposure” series, significantly shaping the progressive house and trance genres. As a solo artist, Sasha has released notable albums, including “Airdrawndagger” (2002) and “Scene Delete” (2016). He has also remixed tracks for artists such as Madonna, Moby, and The Chemical Brothers. He was voted World No. 1 DJ in 2000 by DJ Magazine and receiving a Grammy nomination for his remix of Felix da Housecat’s “Watching Cars Go By.” He released a beautiful ambient compilation, The EmFire Collection, that included his score to the surfing movie, “New Emissions of Light and Sound.”
Sasha talks about sculpting a soundtrack that finds Da Vinci in the future he helped create. Join John Diliberto with Sasha on Echoes from PRX.