Love this article for a number of reasons--it's an article that wasn't published originally because The Village Voice thought David Lynch was receiving too much praise at the time (when Twin Peaks was airing). Now, 25-or-so years later, it's a great time capsule. The era was peak postmodernism in my judgment. The author is certainly channeling this cultural mood--like critics of all eras. To me, the voice is vintage "adult." I was about eight or nine at this point, so my appreciation of speech and conversation patterns of adults in society had really come a long way in a short time. I was finally able to consciously interpret the "cultural mainstream" as such. But I digress.
The article is also a great insight into the relationships between artistic craftsmen. Sometimes people just click--personality-wise and creative craft-wise. These relationships often lead to great collaborations, but, like marriages, can drift apart. In this article, I perceive Alan Splet to be David Lynch's sonic spirit guide. My understanding is that following Alan Splet's death and the coincident rise of the digital sound workflow, Lynch became more DIY about sound design. My reading of the subtext here is that Lynch probably wanted to be doing more sound work himself the whole time--it is an incredibly addictive, powerful storytelling medium. I bet Lynch's raw, sensual genius found a great ally in Splet's raw, sensual appreciation of sound and electronics technology. At the outset of their relationship, the learning curve to be able to engineer and produce what Lynch's subconscious demanded was probably too steep, probably too time-consuming. Alan Splet was the shortcut man--the electric spark between the two live wires held by David Lynch.
These kinds of relationships occur everywhere in art and industry. In the face of a gulf, human beings will metaphorically knit their bodies together to form a rope bridge. As technology changes however, these ingenious workarounds unfortunately begin to resemble something lesser--something hackneyed or rushed or inefficient. This is probably related to 20/20 hindsight, also the ceaseless drive toward whatever's on the horizon. But it is the fool who forgets his spirit guides, who forgets the shapes he learned while grasping in the dark.
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/05/13/snapping-humming-buzzing-banging-remembering-alan-splet/