April 2006 will see legendary producer, composer and songwriter Daniel Lanois tour Australia with his telepathically-in-tune band of companions. Taking in a stop at the East Coast Blues & Roots Festival, the tour will reach major capital cities and is one not to be missed by all fans of captivating, spiritual music.
Daniel’s career to date has left a distinctive imprint characterised by its integrity and singular artistic vision. Without his enormous influence it is difficult to imagine how different our popular music landscape would be.
When Brian Eno recorded his landmark ambient releases of the 1980’s and ‘90’s, he transformed our perception of space, music, and performance. His collaborator on those albums, and on his subsequent ground-breaking production work with U2, was Daniel Lanois. Lanois took the techniques he developed with Eno and went on to produce career defining albums for Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris and (again) U2, earning him Rolling Stone’s accolade as “the most important record producer to emerge in the ‘80s.”
In total, Daniel has produced or co-produced 43 albums including acclaimed records with The Neville Brothers, Ron Sexsmith, Luscious Jackson, Willie Nelson and Marianne Faithful.
He is currently nominated for three 2006 Grammy awards. One for his production on U2’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb album, but two in recognition of his sublime new album, Belladonna (Best Pop Instrumental Album: Belladonna and Best Pop Instrumental Performance: “Agave”, a track from the album.)
Belladonna is an instrumental record featuring Daniel’s stunning work on the pedal steel guitar blended with the organic atmospherics and haunting sonic textures that he is known for. Both timeless and futuristic, the album blends his peerless gift for evocative sonic texture with the soulful mysteries of blues, folk, country and gospel.
CMJ magazine called Belladonna “an aural buzz of pedal steel guitar, dusty drum kits and layers upon layers of mood, mood, mood that reveal themselves after repeat listens”, while Performing Songwriter says about the record: “Belladonna is an immersive, alluring work, as mysterious and evocative as a dry wind.”
The Daniel Lanois live band consists of trusted cohorts Jim Wilson on guitar, Marcus Blake on bass, Steven Nistor on drums and Lanois himself presiding over guitar and vocal duties.
The Australian performances are sure to inspire, capturing Lanois in full flight as he creates sonic canvases as distinctive as they are memorable. Such artistry was not lost on New York Times critic Jon Pareles when he saw Lanois live in 2005:
“It was orchestral…the songs welled up to fill the room for a spellbound audience. Behind him, video screens showed angels, open roads, kaleidoscopic patterns. There's Celtic music in his open chords and picked patterns; there's spiky blues syncopation and the choppy primitivist rock of his fellow Canadian Neil Young. When Mr. Lanois switches to pedal steel guitar, the songs take on just a hint of country, but he also makes each hovering chord appear and vanish like an ectoplasm.”
