biographical info
Daniel Lanois relates the title track to his new album Here is What is, to a Jamaican proverb he heard many times when he worked with reggae legend Jimmy Cliff. The song cautions, "Here is What Is. Don't you go walking too long in the dark." Advice Lanois seems to heed, as the album is the soundtrack to his new documentary of the same title. The documentary Here is What is, is what Lanois would call "the travelogue of his life" filmed over the course of the past year. In the film, Lanois guides the listener on a search for the "source of the art, rather than everything that surrounds the art." A point he simply describes as the "beauty of creation." The film and its companion album, allow Lanois to delve into "his orphanage" of many previously unreleased textures, rhythms, hooks, grooves, prose, rhymes and atmospheres and bring them all to light in a one of a kind sonic journey grounded by Lanois' stellar musicianship, imagination and relentless pursuit for that "spark of initial magic." Lanois is one of the most distinct and celebrated music producers, solo artists and composers in the modern era.