Crazy Clown Time
Crazy Clown Time is the second studio album and debut solo album by the American director and musician David Lynch. It was released on November 7, 2011 on PIAS and Sunday Best. Described as a "modern blues" album by Lynch, Crazy Clown Time was self-produced and four singles were released. Upon its release, Crazy Clown Time received moderately positive reviews and placed in several international charts, including the U.S. Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart where it peaked at number 3. Composition Crazy Clown Time has been described by Lynch as "a collection of dark songs" in the style of "modern blues". The album incorporates elements of avant-garde music, including the use of feedback; noise; dissonance; and soundscapes which feature "dense layers of texture". Lynch's particular style of blues and his use of avant-garde techniques was commented on by Consequence of Sound, with writer Adam Rier saying that Lynch had "taken something very familiar to anyone who has listened to music in the Western world and turned it into something chilling, creepy [and] utterly Lynch-ian." Several tracks on Crazy Clown Time, including "Good Day Today", are regarded as electronic pop. Lynch's "Fifties-style" guitar sound on Crazy Clown Time often features use of tremolo, and other effects are used throughout the album, including considerable use of reverb and delay. Lynch's vocal tracks are heavily processed, through use of vocoders and modulation effects. Crazy Clown Times lyrics have been described as "enigmatic" and some are written in a stream-of-consciousness style. "Strange and Unproductive Thinking", which includes themes from "cosmic awareness to tooth decay", features lyrics centered around and referencing Transcendental Meditation, a technique Lynch uses and is an advocate of. Two songs on the album ("Strange and Unproductive Thinking" and "Crazy Clown Time") are delivered in a spoken-word vocal style. Lynch and engineer Dean Hurley composed all of the album's songs; Lynch wrote all of the song's lyrics. Lynch and Hurley's songwriting process began as jams, around which songs "eventually found a form" and to which Lynch later penned the lyrics. Packaging Crazy Clown Times sleeve artwork and booklet were designed by graphic artists Chris Bigg and Vaughan Oliver of v23 under direction from Lynch; Lynch designed several pieces of additional artwork. The "Super-Deluxe" edition, released in 2012, is packaged in a red-leatherette book "and a rigid black suedelle slipcase for maximum tactile effect". Describing the process of designing the packaging, Oliver said: The album's title has been theorized by Noisey creative director Eddy Moretti as being related to the "Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity", a concept for personal anger and fear featured in Lynch's 2006 book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. Release Crazy Clown Time was released worldwide on November 7, 2011. It was released on PIAS America in the U.S. and Sunday Best in Europe and made available on CD, double LP and as a digital download. Special editions of the album were released internationally, including a collector's edition CD in Europe with a 16-page booklet; a CD