What Does ILM Think of Daniel Lanois?

http://static-l3.blogcritics.org/10/12/21/150575/DanielLanois500.jpg

So, while ILM was down, following my late-period Eno poll, I spent an inordinate of time on Spotify listening to the records, productions (and rather self-important memoir) of Daniel Lanois.

And frankly, I'm not sure I know what I think of him. On one hand, the guy brings the same bag of tricks to everything he touches: spooky ambience, leslie-speaker distortions. On the other, it is a great bag of tricks. For every artist it works for (for instance, the Neville Bros. on Yellow Moon) there seem to be at least two others for whom it doesn't (Willie Nelson sounds like a guest on his own Teatro). Dylan has seen both; while for many Lanois' "sonics" worked the first time he tried it out (on Oh Mercy), for some they ruined the reunion (Time Out of Mind).

As a songwriter, Lanois is a fusion of Bruce Springsteen and a rather mushy adult contemporary strain of Emo that veers from nondescript to, periodically, sublime. I used to own For the Beauty of Wynona and found a lot of it to be (well-recorded) macho/sensitive guy nonsense. But on the other hand, I was obsessed with every note of this performance for weeks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiEVI-zPsJY

So, what say you, ILM, of the man Xgau calls "Eno's pet romantic"?

I think he's massively underrated as both a producer and especially as a songwriter (some of the best songs on "Wrecking Ball" were his, while something like "The Maker" is as close as we've come to a contemporary folk masterpiece), but particularly underrated here in ILX land. He's sort of been wandering the wilderness a tad lately, but his formative stuff (beginning with "Apollo" and his other early Eno collabs) up through, I dunno, "Time Out of Mind" were great to my ears and taste.

Anyway, great songwriter and great producer, and frequently misunderstood on both counts.

Well, he has an unbelievably portentous way of talking about his music, which I'm not sure serves him as well as he thinks. That might be part of it.

I'm sort of mixed on him as a songwriter tho I really like "The Maker" as well -- Acadie in general is a pretty good listen. In fact, the above version of "Where Will I Be" features Blade trying to play on top of the original drum track from "The Maker."

Have you heard his band Black Dub? It's got great playing and the woozy atmosphere sound he's been perfecting since Shine or so in 2003. I think I'd love it were it not for Chris Whitley's daughter's singing -- it's like a bloozier Linda Perry was invited in for the session.

I don't care at all for his productions of the last ten years, but Teatro and So are two of my favorites, both of which were albums whose creators refracted some of Lanois' sensibilities.

I think Black Dub was pretty disappointing. But some of the duo shows I've seen with him and Blade have been revelatory. I like to the Blade albums he produced, too. I think all too often people think he's just glooping on the effects, but the Lanois sound has as much to do with overdriven amps and the right rooms as they do effects. The incredible guitar sounds on "For the Beauty of Wynona" are supposedly just his Les Paul Goldtop with P-90s cranked through a Fender Bassman. Actually, Lanois's rig is very similar to Neil Young's - Goldtop with P-90 in the bridge, Firebird pickup in the neck, cranked through a Fender amp (/nerd).

I've mentioned this somewhere else, but in his (all over the place) memoir, Lanois says he recorded "Time Out of Mind" with two sets of amps, one set more or less clean in the room with Dylan and the band, but a second set mic'ed in a different room, with more dramatic settings. The final mix used a little of both, to degrees.

Time Out of Mind is to my ears one of the worst major production job of the last fifteen years, never mind the humdrum songwriting.

*jobs

Time Out of Mind is to my ears one of the worst major production job of the last fifteen years, never mind the humdrum songwriting.

That's just nuts unless you toss in a qualifier, like "worst Lanois productions" or "humdrum Dylan songwriting." Either that or your list of worst production jobs runs into the hundreds, which it may/should.

I think this dude is a hack producer with occasional moments of brilliance (like The Pearl and Le Noise). "same old bag of tricks every time" is a fair critique imo, maybe change to "almost every time"? I don't ever want to hear his regular songs, definitely not my thing.

Hack-perbole.

I think all too often people think he's just glooping on the effects, but the Lanois sound has as much to do with overdriven amps and the right rooms as they do effects.

I would totally agree. His memoir (Soul Mining) def. makes the point that achieving "depth of field" is his main goal -- and that relies on mic placement and amps. To the extent he's using effects, while he's fairly cagey about his secrets, most of it is tape delay and an old Eventide harmonizer.

Again, tho, I think his sort of persona has a tendency to kind of undermine his product from time to time -- setting up shop in these very romantic, dramatic locales, old mansions in the French Quarter and projecting movies on parachutes hanging from the rafters of old x-rated Mexican theaters while the band records. It creates a real sense that the records he makes aren't about the artists he's recording -- but rather him producing those artists.

I also think his sense of composition is somewhat...if not conservative exactly at least very traditional. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily. But where, say, Mark Hollis was interested in stretching the boundaries of songwriting itself when he did his depth of field experiments on his self-titled record, Lanois applies these somewhat progressive production techniques to fairly straightforward tunes.

When it really works (say, "With God On My Side" on the Neville's record), it really, really works. When it doesn't, it can feel forced, artificial and kind of pretentious. And in the case of a record like Neil Young's Le Noise, or even Wrecking Ball it can feel like both.

The Black Dub album is like the only vinyl LP they sell at the FYE at the mall I go to sometimes. I was going to but it for Kerr for Christmas but I've since decided that was probably a terrible idea...

I dig the hell out of Le Noise and Wrecking Ball though.

Time Out of Mind is to my ears one of the worst major production job of the last fifteen years, never mind the humdrum songwriting.
ha, let's keep in mind this is coming from a huge empire burlesque booster, so, um, grain of salt.

Are you suggesting Al is a contrarian? ;-)

Btw, one of the things I found a bit surprising reading Lanois' book and seeing his movie is the extremely high regard he still holds for Eno. Like, there's no question their relationship is more peer at this point in their careers than teacher-student (both are over 60). But from having him sort of co-star in/narrate the movie to all the passages that describe the wisdom Eno has imparted to him over the years, the guy seems to still be a major touchstone and inspiration for Lanois. Which is interesting given how little they are alike in many ways.

But Empire Burlesque DOES offer terrible production! But the songs are much better. Let me put it this way: EB's terrible production interferes LESS with the good songs than TOOM's on its good songs.

In Lanois' defense his voodoo vibes-and-smoke atmospheres serve Dylan far better on Oh Mercy. The difference to my ears is the way in which that record sounds like eight or nine discrete moments -- risible, stupid, sublime -- instead of the auteur-imposed (and producer-abetted) dourness of TOOM.

I appreciate the effort on Time Out of Mind. I think the instruments sound pretty good and I like the reverb. I think they might have mixed it all in the center though. Mono. There's too much space in it.

Yeah, I would have loved it in mono. Good call.

Listening now, it's not just the stereo separation that sounds problematic. There's too much space in the mix regardless of where things are in the stereo field. I want to hear it mixed as more of a wall of sound. There are all those sounds that sound great on old records but they're floating in space.

Lanois talks a lot in the book about how he was trying to achieve this old sound from 50s records on TOOM -- with mic placements just so that you could really perceive where the band was but with certain artificial aspects to it that kind of played with your head (he mentions being able to hear John Lee Hooker tap his foot).

I don't really hear that on the record.

I can never decide how I feel about this dude. Sky Motel is one of my favorite Kristen Hersh records, and i think he gets partial credit for that, but often I feel like he's the sort of producer who exemplifies what Steve Albini dislikes (or one of the things he dislikes) about the term "producer": Lanois's stamp is audible on his productions from the first notes. Of course, that's also true with Albini stuff to an extent. But with Lanois it feels kind of - I don't know - like, his aesthetic can draw the best out of an artist, but that's not really his primary concern. Which I find a little offputting, even when it sounds terrific.

i like martha and the muffins.

i like most of TOOM a lot, and think that the murky production is a cool element. i don't want every dylan album to sound like that, but it's got some great tunes on it. "trying to get to heaven" "highlands" "cold irons bound" "not dark yet" "standing in the doorway"... it's definitely a *strange* production. sounds like a LOT of players on each track -- multiple guitarists, drummers, keyboards, all mixed in this odd, distant way. what's interesting is to hear the outtakes on Tell Tale Signs (which I presume were not mixed by Lanois) -- they've got a much clearer/sharper sound and much more "together" sounding performances. One wonders if there are unused takes of a lot of those TOOM songs along the same lines.

I thought this story about Lanois pouting over not being the lead guitarist on the TOOM session said a lot about the guy's ego -- stuff I've always suspected but you don't get from his memoir.

oh yeah, i'm sure the dude has a major ego. how could he not? and yeah, in the hands of a different producer, TOOM would've been a very different album, but i don't know, it's an album I can live with. anyway, if you want to hear (most of) those songs stripped of their Lanoisiana, seek out the bootlegs or live singles Dylan put out after the fact. more along the lines of Love & Theft (same band from that album, roughly).

There's also anecdotes about Lanois resisting U2's "reinvention" on Achtung Baby; the band pegged him as the one mired in "old U2."

xp like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh6olWmjzo8

mired in "old U2" during achtung baby was prob shorthand for "the guy who is more steeped in american music"

Aren't there stories about Dylan wanting to make some kind of Beck-ish album before Lanois did TOOM? It seems to age better than, say, Pop.

ha, i don't think i'd heard that (beck-ish). i know that lanois at some point suggested sampling old 78s to get some sort of ambiance for TOOM. there might even be a sample from a charley patton record or something?

the version of "Red River Shore" (rejected, according to Clinton Heylin, quite reluctantly) on TTS is unimprovable. I shudder thinking how Lanois would have smothered it.

yeah, that one really suggests a whole different conception of how the album could've sounded.

looking at lanois' production credits and holy shit -- did not know he did simply saucer's demo!

And Luscious Jackson! And Scott Weiland!

Also, while I think Lanois clearly gravtitates toward Americana stuff, he can be pretty adventurous. I mean, "So" is a strange, spacious, airy sounding record. And possibly the weirdest, most atypical stuff he's ever done was, of all things, the Robbie Robertson solo album, which had those two or so bizarre tracks with Tony Levin (on stick) and Terry Bozzio (!) as the rhythm section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze89N8Gc3sk

ha, those are pretty weird dudes to pair with robbie robertson. that album is so bad though.

Though of course this is more par for the course, Robertson doing Gabriel (with Gabriel), which at the least further counters the Robertson auteur theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGw7Bn05feE

That Luscious Jackson record sounds like he worked with them but didn't have final cut, and so it's kind of his sound but not all-in.

I always wish Lanois had taken Leonard Cohen's Ten New Songs and did his thing with it.

yeah him and cohen might be a good fit. get those canucks together!

interesting to hear some praise for Teatro on this thread - i haven't listened to that one a bunch, but when I did, it seemed like Lanois had sucked all the life out of Willie.

I hated Teatro at the time.

You'd think with Robertson and Young off the bucket list, he would have found his way to Cohen by now.

any minute now, it'll be announced that he's manning the boards for the next arcade fire opus

Teatro's back cover tells it all: a picture of Willie looking like he's stoned to the gills with no idea what he's doing there.

xpost Arcade Fire already produced by Markus Dravs, former Eno acolyte/apprentice/assistant.

I saw Willie live when Teatro was new (at Farm Aid) & he sounded terrific playing those songs: it sounded huge & spooky in the giant amphitheater. It's a good record but not one to which I've returned, & I ought to do so.

I think I was at the same show. Tinley Park? Was Lanois in the band? With those two Cuban drummers?

Tinley Park, right, the year with Brian Wilson, Phish jamming with Neil Young, & Mellencamp with a rap interlude.

I didn't know Lanois was in the band, though! Definitely remember the drumming: that was a big part of the spooky vibe that night.

Especially love the last track on Teatro, "I've Loved You All Over The World."

Similarly, I saw Emmylou Harris at First Avenue when Wrecking Ball came out, with drums and percussion and all, and she was terrific.

his recordings: Acadie then diminishing returns

his productions: unlistenable in philly otm: "But with Lanois it feels kind of - I don't know - like, his aesthetic can draw the best out of an artist, but that's not really his primary concern. Which I find a little offputting, even when it sounds terrific"

i kind of dig the instrumental record he did with brian blade and mehldau a few years ago. haven't really been a fan of his vocals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zeu7kMwQPws

his productions: unlistenable in philly otm: "But with Lanois it feels kind of - I don't know - like, his aesthetic can draw the best out of an artist, but that's not really his primary concern. Which I find a little offputting, even when it sounds terrific"

I missed this post earlier and completely agree. You only need to look at the number of times he's either hired a documentarian to film the proceedings (Rocky World, Wrecking Ball, Here Is What Is) or written about himself (Soul Mining) to see that it seems like it's a lot more about him than the people he's working with.

Oh Mercy going down pretty nicely at the moment. "Most of the Time" is really fabulous.

Such a weirdly first rating guy. I want to love his sound and approach and then he goes and films himself live mixing a track in some Hollywood mansion after drinking a shot of "truth serum." Gag.

I was surprised to learn, on buying a Raffi record from the used bin a while back for my kids, that it was produced by Daniel Lanois, who, at the time, ran a small studio near where Raffi worked.

https://joelfrancis.com/2009/05/15/lanois-raffi-eno/

Xpost, first rating = frustrating

Listening back the last few days ...

Flesh and Machine, his most recent solo record, is really good. Whereas most of his records have his sensitive new age guy emoting on them, lots of Rock-with-a-capital-R guitar and a bunch of his (admittedly nice) pedal steel playing, this one is pretty much just Lanois manipulating loops on his Lexicon Prime Time. About half of the tracks have Brian Blade doing his Brian Blade thing and there's a bit of pedal steel and piano in places. But most of it is loops, echoes and textures he's mixing together to create some kind of composition. Probably my favorite thing under his own name.

Le Noise, his Neil Young album from 2010, is generally really good if somewhat less revolutionary than he probably imagined it was when he made it. It's one of Lanois' uber– pretentious conceits: just Neil, his guitar and Lanois' "sonics" recorded in a spooky Hollywood mansion with shit projected on the walls while Neil laid tracks down. And candidly, there isn't much about the production that you can't do using a handful of plugins on a Mac in today's day and age. But Neil's songs are among his strongest in probably 20 years – "Hitchhiker" is a rambling Neil classic. And Lanois' production, to his credit, brings out some nice Crazy Horse-ish textures on the guitars and an often hidden ghostly quality in Neil's vocals. B&W film of the proceedings (another Lanois hobbyhorse of late) is pretty solid as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU5B53b9ntQ&feature=youtu.be

goodbye to language is pretty cool, nothing incredible but i feel like i've wanted an album of ambient pedal steel for a long long time

i love it, really beautiful sounds.

chuck johnson has an ambient pedal steel record coming out on VDSQ, keep your eyes open!

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.

See, I enjoy the production on Oh Mercy: even through the swamp fog, the instruments are distinguishable; the spartan crew helped.

xpost That's very similar to the story I'd head of Dylan hearing one mix in his studio or while Lanois experimented and did other stuff in a different room, with a different feed. So I guess there was no way Dylan could say "turn that shit off," lol.

I love reading Dylan stories when they pop up in Tape Op. Like this one, from David Bianco:

How did you come to work with Bob Dylan?

When I got this room going, I found that, without hyping it up too much, or jazzing it up with EQ — using the right microphone for the right situation — I was getting really great natural sounds. I recorded an acoustic-based record (Can You Hear Me) with a fellow named Keaton Simons. Live acoustic guitar, drums, and bass, for the most part — there were a few cuts when we went electric — and it caught the ear of Bob's manager, vis-à-vis the head of the record company. They liked the acoustics of the record. They wanted somebody who could get a "live through one mic" sound, and Chess Records was the model for it. Bob was on the road in Nashville; they pulled in to do a recording and there was one microphone open. Bob was in the control room and said, "That's the way a record should sound." Not that Chess Records were one mic, because they weren't, but Bob had that concept so they asked me if I could do it. I said, "Sure, I can do that. No problem." But what I did do was sneak some microphones in the usual spots everywhere. We had everybody in one room, with everything bleeding; like the organ at 110 dB with an upright bass right next to it. You can imagine the degree of difficulty was pretty intense. But I did have the one mic. I researched and found the microphone that they had in the studio in Nashville. It was an AKG C422, so that I had the same mic up. I wasn't going to blow that. I recorded that mic, along with a couple of stereo Telefunkens and all the microphones I had discreetly placed on all the instruments. I was prepared when Bob came into the control room and said, "I can't hear Mike's (Campbell) guitar." I had an SM57 tucked inside his amp and pushed the fader up. Bob said, "Oh, yeah. That's better!" It was a lot of fun; we had a lot of success and a number one with that record (Together Through Life). The next time we met up was for a Christmas record. He told me that everyone was asking him how we got that sound on the last record. But he said, "I'm not going to tell 'em. I can't tell 'em." But I'm actually not sure he had any idea.

I was reading Daniel Lanois' book (Soul Mining: A Musical Life), and he mentions that Dylan was a bit of a shadowy figure, showing up at random times, and whatnot. Was that your experience?

No, Jack Frost (Dylan's nom de plume) was the producer. You know, if you have a vision and stick to it, that is part of production. Being able to stay on course. There are actually only a few guys in this town that can do that. Once you get into "Alice in Wonderland" in the studio, things really change. Very few guys can really hang onto it. When I first met Dylan, I didn't really think about what I was getting into until I was driving down the I405, to Jackson Browne's studio (Groove Masters), even though I had done a bunch of prep. I did three days of intense equipment chats with the crew at Jackson's studio. I really wanted to make sure my ducks were as close to in a row as they could possibly be. I did a lot of plug charts, as well as lists upon lists on how we could do this thing. It really didn't dawn on me until I got near the Skirball (Cultural Center), and I said to myself, "Holy shit! This is Bob Dylan!" I started to realize what he meant to me. I started to psyche myself out and realized I had better tamp that down! When I finally walked in there and met him, the first thing I did was go to shake hands and Bob goes like this (makes a fist for a fist bump])and I shook his fist. First meeting! I'm thinking, "Oh, my God!" Nobody warned me about that. I wish I had gotten the head's up. Bob said, "So, we're going to go in there and listen to the templates, and then we're going to record." I said, "Oh, we're doing covers?" He looked at me and went dark, blank-faced, and then said, "They're not covers, they're templates." We go in and listen to this Otis Rush song, which became "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'." We would go in and listen to the old tunes, taking those grooves and modifying the licks. On some of the tunes he didn't change the lick. He would look in the control room and say to his manager Jeff (Rosen), "What did you think of that?" He'd reply, "It's really too close, Bob." And Bob would say, "Aw, fuck it!" (laughs) So they paid for those and definitely had to give credit! Once we were mixing and getting it done, he says to me, "They don't make records that sound like this anymore." I said, "Yeah, it's like a Gestalt recording; you get the big picture all in one go." He thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. He doubled over laughing and said, "I couldn't have said it better myself, and I learned a new word!" He always wanted us to have our meals together, like a family, and he listened to people completely. Not what you would imagine. He was always like, "And then what'd you do?" He was that guy! I got calls to do interviews during the sessions, about the sessions. I turned to his manager and said, "They called me about doing an interview about the sessions." He shut his laptop and said, "You know, there's no upside to talking about anything about Bob." I went, "Nuff said... okay!" And then he opened his laptop again.

There was another great Dylan story I read in Tape Op (I may be misremembering the exact details), where the producer or engineer had gotten all these expensive ribbon mics and the like, but Dylan walks in and heads strait for the shittiest mic in the room and just says something like "let's go." So they hit record and get a take, everyone says it sounds great, and the engineer says something like "now let's just swap out that mic," and Dylan responds stone faced "I thought you said it sounded great?" And they record the rest of the album with that shitty mic. Again, could be misremembering, but it's something like that.

In Heylin's book he listens to the final mix of Down in the Groove or whatever on a boom box. "I think it could use more bass."

Engineers all seem to have great Dylan stories.

Mark Howard (Lanois's main guy) gave a great interview on Dylan: https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/bob-dylan-tell-tale-signs-special-mark-howard-37964/

Chris Shaw also gave on to Uncut - he got Dylan to switch to Pro Tools, and it's pretty amusing: https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/recording-with-bob-dylan-chris-shaw-tells-all-37854/

*one to Uncut

On some of the tunes he didn't change the lick. He would look in the control room and say to his manager Jeff (Rosen), "What did you think of that?" He'd reply, "It's really too close, Bob." And Bob would say, "Aw, fuck it!" (laughs) So they paid for those and definitely had to give credit!

LMAO

Great! We got to talking Lanois & Dylan here recently: Phil Spector's dead to me now Also good stuff about the roles etc. of producers.

FWIW, Uncut went nuts a interviewed a lot of people who recorded with Dylan between 1989 and 2006.

Malcolm Burn is another good one to read from Oh Mercy: https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/bob-dylan-tell-tales-special-online-exclusive-part-2-37975/

He was actually the main engineer as well as one of the instrumentalists, but he wound up playing so often that Mark Howard handled most of the engineering during the recording. The best parts give a layman's idea of how Dylan thinks/operates when he records, it makes a lot of things less mystifying. For example:

Nothing on the record took a lot of takes really. The only thing we took a lot of time getting – and this is another interesting thing about is approach – is like, if he was fixing a vocal part. Y’know if he wanted to punch in just a part of a song again. It was never about whether it was in tune or out of tune or anything like that. It would be – let’s say he’s singing a replacement line – he’d sing it and you’d try to mix it into the original track, he’d listen to it and he’s say, “Ah, nah, nah, nah. That’s not the guy.” And I’d say, “The guy?” And he’d say, “Yeah. It’s not the same guy.”

And I really understood. It’s like acting, you’re trying to find the character or a motivation. So many singers I’ve worked with are so self-conscious about being in tune, they’re so worried about how they sound, and they’ll sing a line, and it’ll maybe sound better and it’ll be in tune – but it’s not the same personality. And I’ll say to them, “I don’t care if the first take is a little out of tune – it’s not the same personality.” And that was something I learned from Bob. I learned a lot from him on that about that kind of thing. So when he came to fixing up a vocal, I’d say to him: “Yeah that’s the guy.” And it would be the guy. The guy, the character he had invented for that particular thing. I mean an extreme example is, if you listen to “Lay, Lady, Lay.” Who’s that guy?

Also Lanois himself gets interviewed, but you should read drummer David Kemper's first: https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/bob-dylan-behind-the-scenes-of-tell-tale-signs-part-12-37864/

Kemper was the drummer during NET's peak years - he played long before Charlie Sexton joined and played most of the shows that featured Sexton and Larry Campbell on dual guitars. He didn't get along with Lanois at all, and when Uncut tells Lanois about the things Kemper said, it feels pretty damn awkward:

https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/bob-dylan-tell-tale-signs-special-part-ten-37884/

*and interviewed

Howard and Burn are both Lanois acolytes, iirc.

Forgot one, guitarist Mason Ruffner: https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/the-real-dylan-revealed-tell-tale-signs-special-part-11-37874/

Pretty short, but it's another good eyewitness POV on how those sessions rolled. Dylan even paid him a generous compliment:

One thing that sticks with me, I kind of got a wow-factor from Bob this one time. I played this little guitar solo on the end of this song “Disease Of Conceit”, he kind of gave me the wow-factor with that. He wrote me a letter after the session, saying that he’d played that recording for Eric Clapton, and Clapton was wondering if it was Mark Knopfler playing. I guess he was feeding me a compliment – I wasn’t sure – but I know he liked that.

It's a beautiful guitar part, but it's also too bad it's a crap song, lyrically speaking - should've been a B-side at best.

I think if Clapton thinks you're Knoplfer, yeah, that's a compliment.

Howard and Burn are both Lanois acolytes, iirc.

Yup, they worked on a lot of his stuff. Last I heard Howard was fighting cancer and I think there was even a fundraiser to help pay the bills, but I think he's bounced back.

Howard was also on Sound Opinions before he got sick and told a key story to Dylan - if you're working with him, it's easy to have a normal conversation like we're having right now, but as soon as, say, a guest or an outsider drops by, Dylan suddenly turns on the weird Dylan act. He uses Billy Bob Thornton as an example, because he did pay a visit just to see Dylan - Thornton tried to shake his hand and Dylan shook his pinky. It reminds me of stories I hear about Lou Reed, but it's like there's a public persona he puts on, partly to shield himself, but when it's just him and someone he knows, he relaxes and just acts like a regular guy.

The whole thing about dropping in on somebody working---I'd never do that, unless I was working too (like an in-person interview, ugh), *and* of course if I had an appointment, but even then it would feel weird, and what if things weren't going well when I got there, or were just too intense for shifting gears/distractions---ughhhh And if it's Famous Person having lunch etc., no way gonna go over there and "Hey Man" fuck that

If it's "I'm a famous Billy Bob too, and a fan I am!" still ng

(Of course bothering Dylan would have anecdotal/interview value.}

Since were talking Lanois and Dylan, here’s another excuse to share the version of “With God On Our Side” he produced for the Nevilles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH_6qdk8zAE

The story he told Maron about using the Roland TR-808 drum machine to do the demos for Oh Mercy was awesome. Do any of those exist?

I prefer YM to TOOM.

Me too. Yellow Moon also has that beautiful version of "A Change is Gonna Come" (with Eno on backing vox).

Fun fact: "The Maker" (probably the best know Lanois solo song?) is built around a leftover track from the "Yellow Moon" sessions.

Speaking of Time Out of Mind, I just checked out the Lanois production discography, and it's been a super weird run since that Dylan album, as if he was specifically trying to get out of his comfort zone. The first odd credit is actually Luscious Jackson, which he worked on right before Time Out of Mind, but since then it's been odd. A lot of work for his band mates and buddies that no one else cares about, like Rocco Deluca and Mother Superior/Jim Wilson. I've seen him do some odd shows here, like one backed by half of Tortoise (bad fit) and his group Black Dub (Lanois on guitar, Brian Blade on drums, and Daryl Johnson on bass, plus Trixie Whitley), which is awesome on paper but was dull in practice.

Yeah, I mention upthread that in the Here Is What Is documentary, Lanois has this kind of staged conversation with Brian Blade for the cameras where he explains how he wants Blad to play over Willie Green's drum track for "The Maker" again for a new version of "Where Will I Be?" Sort of a dubious interaction but prolly my favorite thing by him.

Fake edit -- here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCnBIdOR8_U

I could listen to Brian Blade play drums all day.

For that matter, I love Lanois's guitar playing (and he usually uses the same guitar, pickups and amp as Neil Young, I think: old Goldtop with Firebird and P90 pickups in it through a Fender Bassman). I got to see him and Blade as a duo a few times, just incredible.

Blade's "Nobel Peace Prize! NO-BEL PEACE PRIZE!" thing is such prototypical inscrutable weird jazz dude humor.

Since Time Out of Mind, the only Lanois albums I'm really familiar with are Teatro, All That You Can't Leave Behind, No Line on the Horizon and Le Noise. Teatro is okay, I actually like ATYCLB and most of NLotH (though it has some really awful shit on it), and Le Noise is probably my favorite Neil Young album post-'90s though the competition there isn't great.

Agree with most of that, particularly NLOTH which has two of my favorite U2 songs. I wasn’t in love with Teatro, but Le Noise is a great sounding record. “Hitchhiker” lives up to the legend, and “Someone’s Gonna Rescue You” is classic Neil.

Goodbye to Language is soooooooo good

"Le Noise" is great, a perfect use of Lanois. "No Line ..." ... I've tried, and I mostly *like* U2, but whenever I go back to it there's just not much I get out of it. I can practically hear the band losing the courage of its convictions in real time, which I suppose makes sense, given the album was supposed to be weird and adventurous but the band wimped out. I remember being bummed out, because I think it's the first U2 album where Eno and Lanois share a lot writing credits - or get credit - but it just fails to live up to its potential.

All of Lanois' solo albums are pretty good to great, iirc. He's a great singer/songwriter, but also super when it's just him and a lap steel.

Down the rabbit hole, it's Lanois interviewed by Pharrell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihcPhJF3wyg

And here he is toying with a Lexington Prime Time delay processor in a band setting, very dub-minded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I31pLAZQf0c

"No Line ..." ... I've tried, and I mostly *like* U2, but whenever I go back to it there's just not much I get out of it. I can practically hear the band losing the courage of its convictions in real time, which I suppose makes sense, given the album was supposed to be weird and adventurous but the band wimped out. I remember being bummed out, because I think it's the first U2 album where Eno and Lanois share a lot writing credits - or get credit - but it just fails to live up to its potential.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I wasn't expecting anything miraculous, but I did like the idea of the band taking some real chances again. When I first played it, I thought "hey, this may be a good album," but then it's like the band went into a panic and we get "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" wedged in there, followed by "Get On Your Boots" (not just a shitty single, they made it the LEAD single for crissakes) and "Stand Up Comedy" which were too awful for the album to make a full recovery. A shame because the rest is good.

A bit later, I noticed some U2 fans re-editing the album, slicing out "I'll Go Crazy," "Get On Your Boots" and "Stand Up Comedy," slotting in "Winter" (the version from the Linear DVD which apparently WAS intended for the album but cut at the last minute) and opening with the brief "Soon" which had ended up as a B-side. Someone uploaded it to Soundcloud somewhere and IMHO it's a big improvement - a solid, commendable album from start-to-finish. I'd probably throw in "Every Breaking Wave" too if the original version ever leaks out. Disappointing that it was ultimately compromised, but I think the material is there for what would have been their last good album.

I think the band was somewhat chastened by the failed Moroccan sessions and likely facing some pressure from the label. It’s a shame because I agree the good material on that record is probably some of their best work with Eno and Lanois.

That Pharrell interview is great, tho the naked lady serving them water is 👀.

Yeah, I assume that was Pharrell trying to be cute, since it happens when he's talking about the important of spontaneity in the studio.

With "No Line ...", I think it really *was* the band chickening out. First it followed the aborted sessions with Rick Rubin. Then the band got cold feet about being too experimental. There are some telling quotes in the wiki (which actually pull-quotes an interview with Eno I did!):

The band scaled back these experimental pursuits, however; Mullen noted: "at a certain stage, reality hits, and you go, 'What are we gonna do with this stuff?' Are we going to release this sort of meandering experimentation, or are we gonna knock some songs out of this?"

Then later, after the album failed to make much of an impression:

The Edge concurred, admitting that the group erred by "starting out experimental and then trying to bring it into something that was more accessible". He added, "I think probably we should have said, 'It's an experimental work. That's what it is.' "Mullen refers to the album as "No Craic on the Horizon" and said, "It was pretty fucking miserable. It turns out that we're not as good as we thought we were and things got in the way." He attributed the release of "Get On Your Boots" as the album's lead single as "the beginning of the end," as the album would not recover from the song's negative reception.

Hah, nice! And I just learned a new word today: craic.

U2 seemed to be okay with low-key releases in the past (Zooropa being a particular favorite), but beginning with Pop, they've gotten really panicky, and I think this was BEFORE Pop came out too, not after - to my understanding, they had the world tour booked and rushed work on it (particularly the lead single, "Discothèque") so they could release it in time for marketing to build the momentum needed for a big summer single. Since then, everything's been so calculated to the point where U2 became more of a corporation than a band. As much as I liked ATYCLB, it was more of a case where sound artistic intent fortunately lined up with their long-term business strategy, which had nothing to do with breaking ground and all about rebuilding their commercial fortunes. It's a far cry from a band that hired Eno against the initial objections of label head Chris Blackwell.

(Should clarify, Pop overall was an attempt to try something new, but it still had the first real troubling sign of business goals compromising their work.)

Damn, who's the drummer on that KEXP session??

Blade.

As for U2 and NLOTH, don’t discount the acrimony over the Passengers project either. It is kind of telling they haven’t worked with Eno or Lanois since this one.

He's a great singer/songwriter, but also super when it's just him and a lap steel.

No, that's not Blade (in the last video that Josh posted)

Touring commitments compromised Pop from the start.

Also, the band saved their worst, most conventional songs rejected from AB andZooropa ("Wake Up Dead Man") for Pop.

Yeah, don't know who that drummer is, but it's not Blade.

With U2, I seem to recall a claim their tours didn't really generate huge profits until after Pop, and for as long as they've been rock stars, I don't think it's been until the All That You Can't Leave Behind album and beyond that their tours have really started raking in the big bucks. Clearly their accountants took a lay of the land and the band took whatever advice they got to heart.

Ok the drummer is Kyle Crane, whose claim to fame is being the drum double in Whiplash (ie any time it cuts to the hands and actually looks like the hands of a good drummer)

My bad, I was thinking of his Tiny Desk concert.

(Willie Nelson sounds like a guest on his own Teatro)

heh this might be my second favorite Willie record since his Outlaw heyday came to a close (Spirit is better)
but tbf he's released a LOT in the last 40 years and I've heard very few.

(Willie Nelson sounds like a guest on his own Teatro)

I didn't see this (I need to start reading thread starters). LMAO. This sounds like a common complaint with Lanois albums - as much as I like Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball, it could've been credited as a Daniel Lanois album with guest vocalist Emmylou Harris, and I wouldn't have questioned it. With Willie, he's made a ton of albums loaded with guest stars and a ton that's basically shared with someone else, so Teatro kind of fits into that tradition except this time he's sharing top-billing with a producer rather than a performer.

Willie's output since the whole IRS thing has been impressive as hell. Right after he settled his tax problems, he recorded one last album for Columbia before they dropped him, and on of that he turned 60, yet he's been ridiculously prolific. I have a real soft spot for that last Columbia album, Across the Borderline. Even if it seems fairly calculated, who cares? He still hits every target. Spirit is easily my favorite, hands down his greatest album since his '70s classics. Even his last few albums have been consistently good too. Teatro is a commendable album, and Lanois's production certainly distinguishes it, but it's not one of my favorites from either Willie or Lanois.

*on top of that he turned 60

yeah i can't say i've knowingly heard Across the Borderline but it looks like it could be interesting.

I gave a listen to Band of Brother(i think that's what it's called?) a while back, which as i understand it all new self-penned compositions, maybe his first like that this century? it was pleasant enough but I can't remember much sticking with me

I think Teatro is an album that on paper seems like it would be a good fit for Lanois, but really isn't. Emmylou I disagree with, though. She specifically approached it as a reinvention of sorts, and all of her solo albums since then have hewed closer to it than to any of her formative works, Lanois or no. Plus, I think the setting and band suits her super well, from song selection to sonics. I don't think she ever sounds less than the star and central focus. Even if it often feels collaborative, I also consider it a perfect pairing of performer and producer. A case in point could be "Where Will I Be," which is a beautiful (Lanois) song sung perfectly by Emmy, vs. "The Maker," another beautiful Lanois song, which is not done justice by Willie on his record.

I did get to see Willie and Lanois doing stuff from that album at Farm Aid in 1998 though! Which also featured the Neil Young/Phish collaboration no one ever asked for. Oh, and a good Brian Wilson performance, iirc!

I love Teatro. Agree Spirit is excellent but don’t hear a thing in Teatro worth complaining about. Willie’s playing is so loose, the roomy sound of the drums is perfect.

I checked Teatro out of the library two weeks ago and gave up after a few plays.

Agree with the praise for Spirit.

but I dig a few Willie shlock-a-rama albums from the mid '80s, so ymmmv

Didn’t know Lanois was there with Nelson at Farm Aid 1998. I was there too!

Yeah, I think he had the two Cuban drummers from the album with him, too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jh5_4o0TCs

There was a sense with Teatro—what with moderately esoteric song choices, the Wim Wenders documentary, and the ramshackle recording setting—that Lanois and Willie were both kind of treading water a bit. It’s fine – but as Josh alludes to, there’s nothing about his version of “The Maker” that the original doesn’t do better. Which is saying something because Willie is arguably one of the dozen or so best singers of the 20th century.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Wrecking Ball no matter how much I try. There are a ton of surface pleasures for me with this record, the material with Neil Young, Larry Mullen on drums. “Goin’ Back to Harlan” is pretty much perfection and “Sweet Old World” is almost as good. But it has this air of pretension that kind of leaves me cold and it marks the beginning of Emmylou’s transformation from transcendent country harmonist to creaky alt country emoter.

It's heretical, I guess, but when Harris sings solo she bores me; she's a genius on backup.

There's a track Lanois did on Syd Straw's debut album that epitomizes a producer applying their signature sound in the most rote, unimaginative way possible (not that the song would have been very notable with a better approach).

I think the last track, "Golden Dreams," is the only one actually produced by Lanois. For Eno completists like me, it features, well, Eno. Incredible number of amazing musicians on that album, though. Everyone from Pino Palladino and Jim Keltner to Marc Ribot and Michael Stipe. Probably leftover connections and goodwill from her Golden Palominos experience.

A good example of what a different producer can do is that first Ron Sexsmith album, which is mostly produced by Froom but which features one song twice, the second time produced by Lanois. Here's the Froom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsEZPvipd2U

And here's the Lanois:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxxulc82lN4

Froom was a better match, at least imo.

The first Chris Whitley album (produced by Malcolm Burn at Lanois's studio) is a good example of Lanois, once-removed. Similarly, maybe, is "Fuse" by Joe Henry, which sounds super cool and was produced by T Bone Burnett but I think mixed by Lanois. (Incidentally, Lanois used to be managed by Melanie Ciccone, Henry's wife and Madonna's sister.)

I looked at the credits on the Syd Straw album, which I have, but never realized the Lanois/Eno involvement. They produced that last track together, he was involved in the production of another, and mixed a third.

"Golden Dreams" is perfectly wonderful. Nothing rote about it.

This is an amusing comparison because Froom is absolutely another producer who increasingly brought a bag of tricks to most of the artists he produced. And usually that bag was carrying a trash can lid and a Chamberlain.

I actually thought of "There's a Rhythm" as another example of Lanois-by-numbers when I made my post.

Honestly, I find the whole Syd Straw album overly fussy except for "Future Forties".

I think the Syd Straw album is kind of fussy and underdeveloped at the same time, but it's been a while. The Sexsmith, I agree that is *totally* Lanois by numbers. I posted it because I think Ron made the right choice by going with the trashcan lid guy.

It's funny, one of the most famous Lanois (solo) productions is "So," but that album lacks many if not most of the characteristics that he's famous for. As opposed to "Us," which is a lot more airy and muddy.

Got distracted just now and finally followed up on this vague credit he gets for working on the "Last of the Mohicans" soundtrack. I never realized even that was subject to Michael Mann's whims.

Director Michael Mann initially asked Trevor Jones to provide an electronic score for the film, but late in production, it was decided an orchestral score would be more appropriate for this historic epic. Jones hurried to re-fashion the score for orchestra in the limited time left, while the constant re-cutting of the film meant music cues sometimes had to be rewritten several times to keep up with the new timings. Finally, with the release date looming, composer Randy Edelman was called in to score some minor scenes which Jones did not have time to do. Jones and Edelman received co-credit on the film (thus making the score ineligible for Oscar consideration). The main theme of the movie is "Promontory", an orchestration of the tune "The Gael" by Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean from his 1990 album The Search. The score was re-recorded and re-released in 2000 to address some perceived problems with its original incarnation. The tracks were reordered into their onscreen chronology (the original album separated the Jones material from that composed by Edelman), some additional cues were added, and Clannad's "I Will Find You" was no longer included.

Anyway, that was a secondary distraction, because there is the matter of Lanois. It looks like he gets writing credit for this pretty soundtrack gem, which originated as an as a Lanois track called "Orchestral Mohicans":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cM1aVESfYk

I forgot he also produced the soundtrack to Red Dead Redemption 2, including songs with Willie, D'Angelo and this sentimental ballad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Rhe5BrYpI

Interesting process talk here:

How different was working on Red Dead from working on, say, a movie soundtrack?

The person playing the game is directing the character, either to walk into a saloon or walk down by the riverbed, let’s say—and depending on the choice you make, you’ll hear a certain part of a given song. We call that a stem. So I have to mix the melodic stem separately from the rest of the song. It makes me put all my mixing energy into those few components at that moment. When I listened back to these stems—these little sub-mixes—they really had a lot of vibe to them, because I was devoting all of my skills to one small aspect of a bigger production. Then we’d move on to the bassline, and then the drums and percussion. So maybe there’d be six or seven choices gotten to by moving the character in the game. And then at some point all those sounds come together.

I thought that was fascinating. It reminded me a little bit of this multiple-speaker thing that I had going with Eno for a while. We’d have maybe a dozen different speakers spread all over the studio, or around the house, and we’d send different sounds through different speakers. I thought that was just fabulous, because you were walking through a forest of sounds that changed largely by distance. Moving into this mixing for the game touched on that nerve—something that I had already fallen in love with a long time ago.

Goodbye to Language is soooooooo good

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, January 22, 2021 9:27 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Speaking of D'Angelo, I bet Lanois was knocked on his butt when he heard "Voodoo."

I'm so sad that the new album is not a follow-up to Goodbye to Language. Not into any of this.

New interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c92R9rAANeA

His brother Bob died today:

https://www.ajournalofmusicalthings.com/bob-lanois-the-producer-studio-owner-brother-of-daniel-has-died/

Among many other things, Bob Lanois produced the sessions that became Simply Saucer's Cyborgs Revisited. According to the story Bob told me when I was writing my book, Dan came home late while the recording was happening in their mom's basement and plugged his ears. R.I.P. https://t.co/Fl4QhdN3So

— Jesse Locke (@wipeoutbeat) April 20, 2021

Aw.

Proper obit here:

Bob Lanois patiently taught me how to run a mixing board at Grant Avenue when I was teenager. This skill helped guide my future in radio. He also showed me how to "listen" to sounds...musical and all sounds. #RIPBobLanois. You were a sweet soul. https://t.co/pWGRmn0gsy

— Peggy Chapman (@PeggyChapman16) April 20, 2021

Good take on a posthumous release, imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs8nUCLQTgw

Long interview on Beato's channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxP9kKzbCFA

Which is how I learned of this, the group Lanois worked with that brought him to Eno's attention:

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