What Does ILM Think of Daniel Lanois?

yeahhh that should be cool.

nice i keep forgetting to buy that sarah louise too

yeah, that is prob the best purely solo guitar record of the year (that i've heard anyway). better than glenn jones! (barely).

anyway, some heavy what-if-kevin-shields-played-pedal-steel vibes on the new lanois

I've seen some stunning Lanois shows which were mostly him on pedal steel and Brian Blade on drums. He's a great songwriter and guitarist, though, so sometimes I wish he would release another songwriter record.

anyway, some heavy what-if-kevin-shields-played-pedal-steel vibes on the new lanois

― tylerw, Friday, September 9, 2016 9:59 AM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not pedal steel but the half of Le Noise that works, works really well and reminds me of a neil/mbv thing

yeah this is really good.

fuuuuuck
this album of ambient pedal steel is ON FLEEK

love it

yup

it's kind of like everything i like about lanois freed of troublesome "songs" (which sometimes his cavernous production tends to overwhelm imo)

"ambient pedal steel" sounds like catnip to me, psyched

xpost I dunno we've talked about it before and I think the trademark Lanois production is a lot more about amps and guitars and rooms than production tricks. His solo albums are a million times less fussy than, say, "So." Though I don't think "So" is an indicative Lanois production, so ...

yeah I don't view his productions as "cluttered" so much as very very distinctive, and here I'm generalizing a bit but with certain albums and certain artists it's definitely putting a stamp on the album like I "Time Out of Mind" or "Teatro"...and can be a big heavy handed at times (IMO) but also really good, I mean he's definitely got a thing

this album is just the best

U2 made their best albums (Boy and Zooropa) without him, IMO.

I agree. They also made their best albums, "Unforgettable Fire" and "Achtung Baby," with him. They also made their worst albums without him.

guys u should hear the Joshua Tree, overlooked gem in the U2 catalog

It's one of their best! Or, alternatively, one of their worst, if you like the others better.

i'm a how to dismantle an atomic bomb guy & that one song from tomb raider guy myself

I like the "Batman" song. No Lanois on that one, though, it's a Nellee Hooper track.

i'm a how to dismantle an atomic bomb guy

― Pull your head on out your hippy haze (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

whoa this post is like

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/25/483514456/an-avian-mystery-rare-parrot-spotted-in-wild-for-first-time-in-15-years

i'm an avowed U2 "stan" and despite a couple of "gems" that one's my least favorite of theirs

Yeah, this was pretty much guaranteed to be up my alley and it is. Not blowing my mind as such but the sort of thing I can see myself putting on a lot. Like a smooth counterpart to Fennesz or something.

(iTunes promotional stunt album def the best, whatever it was called.)

but i feel like i've wanted an album of ambient pedal steel for a long long time

I think BJ Cole has been making those for decades.

what is a good bj cole album to start with

Sad eyes, sad eyes
Where're you going with that confidence?
Sad eyes, sad eyes
Where're you going with that confidence?

I'm going to where the boats go by
Caledonia river flows so wide
I'm going to where the boats go by
Caledonia river flows so wide

what is a good bj cole album to start with

― marcos, Tuesday, September 13, 2016 2:32 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iirc there are only two: The New Hovering Dog, which is the "classic," and one that came out many years later on Hannibal whose name escapes me but is probably more what you're looking for (less song-based). Both, as I recall, are really great if you dig this sort of thing. See also: Chas Smith (who's even further 'out')

I've listened to some later BJ Cole and always has an 'oh' reaction - one of those where you mean to return but never do. Just discovered the New Hovering Dog is on Spotify and has Robert Kirby arrangements (Nick Drake's buddy) and Danny Thompson on bass.

I've always dug "Indian Red" from the Wynona album, maybe its only because it expands on the mid-80s U2/Robbie Robertson sound, just, without the Bono or the Robbie. I especially like how Peter Gabriel used him as a plucked instrument and less-so for defining the entire palette.

...Bit of a proto Nigel Godrich?

I can't help but think that The Unforgettable Fire is the lousiest sounding album U2 put out in the '80s, and probably the worst production on a U2 album until Pop.

My ears must be broke

I'd kill to see All the Pretty Horses restored with Lanois' score

BJ Cole also did a record with Luke Vibert. I haven't heard it in quite a few years, but remember liking it.

'goodbye to language' is all I'm listening to this week in this household, only 36 minutes long but inexhaustibly great. the textures of Apollo smeared and extended out, unexpected late period add to the eno/lanois ambient music chapter (in the liner notes, evidently Eno tipped Daniel to the tiny sampler used for this album -- he bolted it to the steel guitar, to make it a physical part of the instrument)

interesting how the NPR preview & even my iTunes mp3 tags of the CD call it a Lanois solo album, but the packaging clearly calls it the duo: Daniel Lanois / Rocco Deluca

definitely time for me to go back and check out some of the other Lanois solos, especially the instrumental ones

All I know of Daniel Lanois as a musican is Eno's Apollo and now Goodbye to Language, which is knocking me out. Are all his albums in this vein or does he jump around?

A few, Acadie, For the Beauty of Wynona and Shine, are singer-songwriter but beautiful and excellent. Others are more experimental, some quietly, some more noisy.

He jumps around but they all have a lot of texture. I find his singer songwriter stuff to be excellent sometimes—his solo recording of "Where Will I Be" on Here Is What Is is amazing—but often pretty turgid.

"Where Will I Be" is such a wonderful song. He's got a couple, like that, which almost sound like standards at this point.

I think turgid is too strong a word. Like, this is slow and moody, but not turgid, imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3MA_7GUoyQ

Kind of samey as a solo artist but excellent as a guest artist. His work with Eno and U2 in the million dollar hotel ost is gorgeous. I normally cant stand U2 but whenever Lanois is involved it sounds great. Also Oh Mercy might be one of my favorite Dylan albums for Lanois touch. Most of the Time might just be my favorite Dylan song

Kind of samey as a solo artist

Acadie is all over the place, stick with that and you're good.

"most of the time" is so fuckin' great

Didn't know he had a new one out.

The one I only really listen to repeatedly is Purple Vista so I'm down with ambient pedal steel

Also I might be biased because I've heard a local jazz singer covering this song several times and it sounds beautiful live but black dub's I believe in you sounds like a classic to me:

http://youtu.be/F13vy1fT870

Possibly. But I fuckin' hate the Black Dub singer w a passion (Chris Whitley's daughter). Or pretty much any Janis Joplin-influenced singer.

Yeah, Lanois really keeps/kept going to bat for her and that Rocco guy.

listened to lanois' new one this morning with this happening outside my bus window, perfect visual accompaniment
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CviVRUbXYAEHwGW.jpg:large

Well...Wrt to Chris Whitley's daughter, given her father I bet she's had some tough times in her life so maybe he's just trying to help

i feel like wrecking ball is a big touchstone for a lot of modern country production

makes sense to me

https://www.facebook.com/vsnares/videos/10155282138718394/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

Good interview w Marc Maron here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/63FyR8xMSuYYn578hjI2Ha?context=spotify%3Ashow%3A6L47MDMO3xuN2XBed7miEI&si=t8jTQ7hFSRiZLSTV0Q5vjQ

Good interview, I posted it in another thread.

I know he's talked about making loops for Time Out of Mind elsewhere, and it's been reported many times that Dylan gave Lanois a whole bunch of old blues records (e.g. Charley Patton) prior to recording just to show him what he had in mind. I didn't realize the loops were an insurance policy though, so that part was pretty amusing. (As Lanois explains it, It was understood that Dylan wanted an old blues sound, but Lanois was afraid that they would end up sounding like a bar band. So he gathered the key players that were hired for the album and had them play along with the exact same records Dylan given him. Then he wiped those vintage records from the multi-track so that all that was left was their own playing, and those were turned into loops. That way if things didn't go so well at the recording sessions, he could dig those up and use them as is or as a backing track to play along with.) It feels like the kind of idea that would come from someone who was a really great cheater in school.

Anyway, this was discussed in another thread, but while Lanois did a good job with Oh Mercy, he didn't know when to stop and the results as released can sound overproduced. I prefer the earlier mixes/alternates of at least a handful of tracks on Tell Tale Signs, specifically "Everything Is Broken" from disc one (less cluttered), "Ring Them Bells" from disc three (no obtrusive overdubs), and "Most of the Time" from disc three (the mix actually breathes, it's not swamped in goo, which Dylan complained about). Also "Series of Dreams," "Dignity" and "Born in Time" should've made the album, and I think Lanois pushed for them (especially those first two songs) but Dylan wouldn't budge.