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L to R: David Lynch, Johnny Jewel

May 21, 2018 Chromatics By Christopher Roberts

Johnny Jewel (of Chromatics and other bands) has surprise-released a new album, Themes for Television, and shared a black & white Radka Leitmeritz-directed video for “Red Door.” The album is out now digitally and on special edition cherry red vinyl via Italians Do It Better. The album features material Jewel recorded prior to last year’s Twin Peaks: The Return revival, but was inspired by the notion that the show was coming back. Stream the album and watch the video below. Also below is the album’s tracklist and cover art.

Jewel released a solo album called Windswept in 2017 and it was while recording that album that he heard that David Lynch and Mark Frost were finally bring back Twin Peaks and Jewel then recorded six hours worth of mainly instrumental material, an imaginary soundtrack for season three of Twin Peaks (which he had not seen yet, as it was still being made at the time). In Tokyo last winter, six hours were whittled down to the 21 tracks on Themes for Television. Last May Chromatics ended up performing their previously shared single “Shadow” during the premiere of Showtime’s Twin Peaks revival, performing the song in the show’s Roadhouse bar, and they also shared a video for the song. And Jewel’s “Windswept” became the theme for one of Kyle MacLachlan’s characters on the show, Dougie Jones.

Jewel had this to say about the album in a press release: “I was about a year deep into recording what would become Windswept when I heard that David was making Season 3 [of Twin Peaks]. It’s been a year since Chromatics performed at the Roadhouse. With disintegrated memory through the haze of television snow, I wanted to share a glimpse behind the red curtain…. The project began as a sonic exploration of the sounds I was hearing in my nightmares. I wanted to find my way out of the maze by focusing on beauty over fear - like the way the fractured sunrise looks in a dream.”

Last week Chromatics shared a video for a new song, “Black Walls,” and promised that their long-awaited album Dear Tommy will finally come out this fall via Italians Do It Better. “Black Walls” was one of our Songs of the Week.

Chromatics were supposed to release Dear Tommy in 2015 (it was announced in December 2014). Despite several songs from the album being released, the album never saw the light of day, continually being promised as coming soon. In May 2017, Alexis Rivera, former manager for Jewel, revealed in a series of tweets that Jewel had a near-death experience in Hawaii on Christmas Day 2015 and afterwards he destroyed all copies of Dear Tommy in order to re-record it to better capture the sound he was going for.

Themes for Television Tracklist:

1. Requiem
2. Windswept (Minimal)
3. Loveless
4. Saturday (Evening)
5. Red Curtains
6. Deja Vu
7. Lipstick
8. Tomorrow Is Yesterday
9. Shadow (Opening Titles)
10. Self Portrait
11. Black Room
12. Spiral Staircase
13. Embers
14. Sleepless
15. Nightmare
16. Red Door
17. Waking Up
18. Caffeine
19. Purgatory
20. Breathless
21. Infinity Room

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