Daniel Lanois solo work

I also recommend the Brian Blade Fellowship, which Lanois produced. Blade's an amazing drummer, sort of like Tony Williams, and his jazz combo features the very unusual inclusion of slide.

Like the thread starter, I had previously onloy known Lanois as a producer and, by reputation, guitarist, and always assumed his solo work would be dull. But I just saw this Direct TV Concert Series thing featuring just him and a drummer and it was OUTSTANDING. Totally psychedelic and surprisingly RAW. Are any of his records like this?

I've got Acadie (1989), The Beauty of Winona (1993) (his two best received song albums) and Belladonna (2005) (slide heavy atmospheric instrumentals). All are very near the top of the heap of what I guess is being called Americana (I hate the term alt-country).

The album you probably want is Here Is What Is (2008), which is the audio accompanyment to his recent live-documentary of the same name, also featuring his drummer Brian Blade. I've posted it here before, but his KUT live session during this year's SXSW is also outstanding. Lanois comes across as a very warm character, as well.

Loved the Sling Blade OST

I bet that KUT session is the same thing I saw. Thanks derelict, will buy that new album. The live version of "Stillwater" I heard, which I know is on Acadie, was just stunning.

Acadie got re-released. never knew Lanois was like the Canadian Paul Simon. ("The Maker")
enjoying it :)

Can't find a separate thread about his production, but anyway I just re-confirmed that Lanois was already sterilizing the life out of good bands in 1984, on Martha and the Muffins' (now actually called M + M for some reason) Mystery Walk, which is mostly a real bore once you get past the silly but kinda funky opening single "Black Stations/ White Stations." Lanois is credited with production and "treatments," and you can totally detect his vacant use of space across the whole record. Turns bearably dubby a couple time on Side One, but that's about it. (Not sure to what extent he was on their earlier stuff; I've always loved "Echo Beach" but can't find my copy of the 45 right now.)

"a couple times," I meant.

Okay, if their Wiki entry is right, Lanois starting producing with 1981's This Is The Ice Age, their third album, a couple years after "Echo Beach." His sister, Jocelyne Lanois, had just joined the band as bassist. This is kind of funny, in retrospect: "In order to utilize his services as a co-producer, Martha and the Muffins had to agree to Virgin Records' demand that, if they were going to insist on working with an unknown producer, they would also have to work with a lower album-recording budget."

And to be fair, probably another reason the band was getting duller was that they kept losing personnel. They changed their name to M+M because, by 1984, they were just a duo, Mark Gane and Martha Johnson.

New album, new direction, supposedly:

http://vimeo.com/105503908

new album with VENETIAN SNARES???

Huh. He occasionally does veer some surprising directions. Like when I saw him here backed by a couple of the Tortoise guys.

this album kinda rules, basically a venetian snares record with smeary pedal steel drones