Think of DANIEL LANOIS and the chances are you'll view him as a producer extraordinaire and the magic ingredient lobbed in by the highly influential themselves (U2, Bob Dylan, Emmy Lou Harris, Peter Gabriel) when they require atmosphere and mystery galore. Like it or not, his reputation precedes, and in the way records touched by the hands of Phil Spector and Martin Hannett changed irrevocably due to their respective producer's visions, it's difficult to believe that albums such as 'The Joshua Tree', 'Oh Mercy' or 'So' would sound the way they do devoid of Lanois' input.
Nonetheless, Lanois has also forged a low-key, but highly respected parallel solo career when he has a window away from directional meetings and intensive sessions involving Messrs. Hewson and Zimmerman or Ms. Harris. His debut album 'Acadie' from 1989 (itself featuring the likes of Larry Mullen Jr, Adam Clayton and other long-term collaborators such as Malcolm Burn) is this writer's main point of reference and it's an absolute gem of a record. In fact, were you to require a blueprint for the atmosphere Lanois so skilfully cloaks other peoples' albums in, then it's all there before your very ears on wonderful drifting tunes like 'Still Water', 'Fisherman's Daughter' and 'Ice'. Add in a little of Lanois' French-Canadian roots, a pinch or two of Cajun spice and voila - 'Acadie'.
Your reviewer must confess to relative ignorance of much of what Lanois has since conceived, however, but certainly his new album 'Here Is, What Is' (also the soundtrack to his documentary of the same name) comes wrapped in that indefinable elusive sense of wonder and enigma that made 'Acadie' such an attractive listen. Yes, there's rather less of the Cajun flavour this time around, but there is lashings of Lanois's pedal and lap steel and enough ethereal melody channelled from the ether to send you (quietly) into rapture.
Admittedly, I haven't seen the documentary as yet (it's described as "the travelogue" of Lanois's life, which - in this case - should be well worth checking out) but certainly much of the music here succeeds beautifully without the attendant visual input. There are 18 tracks in all and it's lengthy, running to over an hour, although this is interspersed with several snippets of conversation featuring Lanois and Brian Eno. In themselves, these extracts are illuminating, not least when Eno gleefully stomps all over his supposed 'egghead' reputation, by suggesting Lanois needs to show that "people need to see how beauty grows out of shit" at one stage. Not what you might expect and all the better for it as a result.
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As you might expect from a loyal team player himself, many of Lanois' regular collaborators appear to put in their consummate pennorths along the way. The record's blurred, but still distinct gospel tinge asserts itself on a potent version of 'This May Be The Last Time', which is led by long-time sidekick Brian Blade's father and the Shreveport Zion Baptist Choir (though it sounds like an uncredited Tom Waits to these ears!), while The Band's Garth Hudson kicks into the epic 'Lovechild' with an improvised piano piece which initially rambles, but gradually makes sense in the overall scheme of the song.
Elsewhere, Brian Eno's influence is all-too tangible, not least on the the drifting, spectral beauty of the minimal 'Blue Bus' and the curious 'Bells of Oaxaca', which is undoubtedly very filmic indeed and sounds like a cross between Harry Partch and something that could almost be from David Byrne's 'Catherine Wheel' OST, even if it does disappear in a flash. The album's other instrumental 'Smoke No.6' probably isn't a subliminal attempt to get you to light up, but its' Delta-fried drift is curiously engaging regardless.
Better still though, are the clutch of tunes which ran among the best things Lanois has been involved in, not least the ghostly, emotional and highly soulful 'Not Fighting Anymore', the gracefully expansive 'Where Will I Be' and 'Duo Glide': the one place where the album approaches rock'n'roll territory of sorts and the bass gets all subterrean and funky along the way.
OK, naysayers could argue the pace is too samey throughout, but it's pretty debatable you'd swing by here if you were expecting terrace anthems, hi-nergy floor fillers or big rock riffs anyway, so it's unlikely you'll have read this far if such is your wont. For the rest of us, 'Here Is What Is' gently reveals its' true colours as a quintessential Daniel Lanois outing which can do his already formidable reputation absolutely no harm at all.
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