Just finished my first listen of Neil Young's "Le Noise" produced by Daniel Lanois, thanks to a heads up from thesixonefournine.com. Grabbed a beer and plugged the headphones into the office computer. Not quite like slipping the wax from the cover and dropping the needle in a darkened room... but with time that will come. I read that Neil only recorded this during a full moon, but hopefully he intended more frequent listening than once a month.
A new Neil Young recording is an event. Now it has become, through NPR, an e-vent. An old Neil Young recording is an event... I recently got hold of a original copy of the On the Beach LP (the inside cover is printed with a wallpaper design... a rarity the record store owner gleefully told me) and Side 2 is sublime stuff on a lazy afternoon. Any inclination to move from your spot is gone within twenty minutes. There is a distinctive sense of time and place that has been captured like a flickering Super 8 movie of sun drenched images from the seventies.
Which brings me to Daniel Lanois.
There is a wonderful chapter in Dylan's "Chronicles" in which he recounts his experience meeting and recording with Danny (as Bono refers to him). They record in New Orleans... twenty foot drapes, wood floors, ancient rugs, spanish moss, heavy air and sense of space, between space.
With every Lanois recording comes a visceral sense of space. Listen to Teatro and you feel that besides Willie and Emmy Lou the nearest voice is a million miles away.
One of my great shared concert experiences was on a on a rain soaked humid Sunday afternoon in 2006 at Bluesfest. Under a hundred souls sheltered under the tent as waiting for the next act. A few of us were in a state of high expectation... others were just pleased to be dry. Not long later the place was packed as word went round that something special was happening.
Daniel Lanois took to the stage took in a deep breath, felt the air with his fingers and said with a smile "Great... humidity... the sounds really going to travel today". He then let rip with some magical pedal steel which to this day is still bouncing off the hills in the Byron hinterland.
It belonged there. How could it ever leave.
BK's Lanois LP highlights...
Acadie/Daniel Lanois (The Maker... oh deep water)
Oh Mercy/Bob Dylan (Most of the Time)
Time Out of Mind/Bob Dylan (Highlands)
Teatro/Willie Nelson (Somebody Pick Up My Pieces)
Shine/Daniel Lanois (Falling At Your Feet)
Yellow Moon/Neville Brothers (With God On Our Side)
Dan won't let me omit:
For The Beauty of Wynona
Steve won't let me omit:
All the U2 stuff
