Julee Cruise Finds Success With Debut LP

“I can’t believe how well the record’s doing (critically),” said Julee Cruise, the New York singer whose debut LP “Floating Into the Night” is a collaboration with film director David Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti. “People have described it as refreshing and brilliant. . . .”

While the 32-year-old vocalist concedes that the album may be getting an unusual amount of attention because of Lynch’s involvement, she remains proud of the results of her first time in a recording studio. Cruise’s clear and simple vocal style sounds a little bit like a lot of things--Julie London, the Cowboy Junkies and the Cocteau Twins come to mind--but on close examination, she proves to be a singularly original vocalist. Smoking with ethereal sensuality, her dreamy voice is so drugged with desire that it comes on like a heavy narcotic.

Born in Iowa, Cruise was trained as a classical French horn player, but moved to New York in 1983 to pursue a career as an actress. She’s spent the past six years working in regional theater and Off-Broadway musicals, and it was in just such a play that she befriended Badalamenti, who also happened to be friends with Isabella Rossellini--who starred in the Lynch film “Blue Velvet,” and introduced Badalamenti and Lynch. Badalamenti and Lynch subsequently wrote a song for “Blue Velvet,” and Badalamenti suggested Cruise as a possible vocalist; thus was born the partnership that led to “Floating Into the Night.”

Though Cruise’s name is on the album cover and Lynch and Badalamenti are listed as composers and producers, Cruise points out that Lynch’s sensibility dominates the LP.

“The voice is my contribution and I also came up with a lot of the harmonies,” she said. “But I didn’t write the material, so ultimately David and Angelo are the creative artists and I’m the interpretive artist.”

Asked why Cruise is the proper vehicle for his songs, Lynch explained in a separate interview that “Julee knows how to sing things dreamy without goofing the music up, and she makes things pure, yet complex. She sings words in a way that gives them mystery and power.”

With plans for a January tour in the works (to be designed and staged by Lynch), Cruise is now busy preparing for the live debut of her collaboration with Lynch and Badalamenti on Friday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of the Next Wave Festival.

“We’ll be a doing a new work by David and Angelo called ‘Industrial Symphony Number One,’ ” she said. “It’s broken down into three sections called ‘Love,’ ‘Nature’ and ‘Industry,’ and I play the love part. I’m pretty nervous about this because I’m used to comedy and rock singing--I’m a belter by nature and I’m not used to such a subtle style of performing. I’m very bashful about my singing and I don’t know why I went into this profession, because it terrifies me.”