Alan Splet

Listening to Robert Hampson's experimental soundscape project Main… The album I'm currently listening to, Hz, a compilation of limited edition singles comes with a dedication to film sound designer Alan Splet (pictured below with David Lynch and Jack Nance). Splet is perhaps best known for creating with David Lynch, the audio surrealism of Eraserhead. Splet first worked with Lynch on The Grandmother which led to a run of tremendous collaborations – Splet was responsible for the sound of the hissing, clanking machinery in The Elephant Man and Dune, and the extraordinary detailed soundworld of Blue Velvet (whose story begins with the shot of an ear!). Elsewhere Splet's brilliant work can be heard in Days of Heaven, The Black Stallion (which won him a special Academy Award for sound editing), The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Dead Poets Society, and The Mosquito Coast, which incidentally includes another piece of sinister machinery...