STACK #121 Nov 2015

EXTRAS

NEWS

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Daniel Lanois’ new album is both a sonic and personal departure.

D aniel Lanois is a prolific lover and creator of music, both as a solo artist and as a producer. Beginning his production career in the early ’70s, he’s worked as co-producer with Brian Eno on some of the ambient godfather’s own solo works, as well as working on projects withThe Neville Brothers, Peter Gabriel, U2, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, and numerous others. But his new solo album, Flesh and Machine, is quite a departure. Gone are Lanois’s sonic signatures, the ambient washes and spirals of sound that have echoed and bounced all over records like Dylan’s Calling STACK from a tour bus in Monckton, East Canada, after two quickly snatched hours of sleep, the musician is forthright about what’s inspired the recent changes in his music. “Bottled up anger!” he laughs. “I’d left myself off the songwriting hook. I have a responsibility to push sound to that place where it’s still a new frontier. It means a lot to me to innovate. Now I’m not driven much by preconception or commercial inspirations.“ From the wordless beginning of Rocco , the squall of The End and the nightscapes of Sioux Lookout, Flesh and Machine is about experiencing a diversity of sound, processed and expressed from its core essentials. It’s challenging, but not alienating; it’s engaging, but not overly intellectual. It’s really just pure music, honestly made. “I let the sounds unfold,” he says. “And if I start getting a feeling from them, I just want a direction that’s been dictated to me by the sounds. I don’t imagine them initially. When they come my way then the clarity of them comes Oh Mercy, Harris’s Wrecking Ball, or earlier Lanois solo albums like For the Beauty ofWynona or Acadie .

into focus …it’s the luxury of my laboratory.“ A great example of Lanois’s new MO can be seen in the clip for the driving and climatic electronic piece Opera – it’s just over three minutes on the album, but a live performance clip posted by Lanois recently shows a live studio improvisation that goes for nearly seven. “In the case of Opera, it gets to the melody more quickly. One that you see on the little film that we did in my shop, I decided to expand the front before the melody comes in. I had just met this kid in a bar, Kyle Crane. Innocently, I invited him to stop by the studio: and I keep a drum kit set up there. He said, ‘Here’s

It was officially announced at E3 in June to rapturous applause, and now the time is finally here.Yes, on November 18, Rockstar will bring its GrandTheft AutoV masterpiece to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. With a slew of technical improvements, new vehicles and weapons, GTA V is about to recruit a whole new generation of gamers, and welcome back the veterans. To celebrate the release of GTA V, STACK has produced three separate, highly collectable games covers featuring the lead characters – Michael, Franklin and Trevor. Make sure you head to your local JB and collect all three; they won’t be on the shelves for very long.To find out what you can expect from GTA V on PS4 and Xbone, head to page 50.

something I’m working on’, and a friend of mine turned

I like putting on a record and being taken

on the little camera. I just extended the front amount of pasture, so we can keep going round and round!” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lanois remains a supporter of the album format. “I like putting on a record and being taken some place.

some place. It’s a magic carpet ride.

It’s kind of a magic carpet ride emotionally. When I was first exposed to Miles Davis, I realised he’d been some place with his imagination that I hadn’t been to yet; he’s my guide to another dimension. If I could pull that off – take a listener to a place they’d never been – that would make me happy. I want to take music to the future. I’m not saying I’m going to succeed every time, but that’s what’s going on in my mind, and it means a lot to me.

Flesh and Machine by Daniel Lanois is out now on Anti

NOVEMBER 2014 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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