Daniel Lanois - Heavy Sun (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Long before he was producing blockbuster albums for U2, composing ambient symphonies with Brian Eno, and cultivating his own singular style of artful roots rock, Daniel Lanois was making records in the home studio he and his brother Bob built in their mother’s basement in the suburbs of Hamilton, Ontario. Their low-cost, open-door policy saw them welcome in a wild array of artists throughout the ’70s, including local proto-punk legends Simply Saucer and Toronto children’s folk singer Raffi, as well as many touring acts on tight budgets passing through the area. “The amount of Jamaican music and gospel music that came through our house was staggering—hundreds of albums made in a regular suburb house basement,” Lanois tells Apple Music. “On that old Jamaican stuff, those guys had all the fun singing in harmony. So I always wanted to be in a singing group, like a four-part-harmony group.” Nearly 50 years later, he’s finally getting his wish. On Heavy Sun, Lanois builds a new band with some old friends (guitarist Rocco DeLuca, bassist Jim Wilson) and one very notable fresh face: Johnny Shepard, the choir leader and organist at Shreveport, Louisiana’s Zion Baptist Church, whose pastor is the father of longtime Lanois drummer Brian Blade. As Lanois recounts: “Johnny said to me, ‘I'll only do this record under one condition: Every song has to have a good message.’” Guided by this policy of positivity, the new quartet spent several months workshopping material at a weekly club residency in LA, developing the repertoire of organ- and gospel-infused hymns that make up Heavy Sun. But this is no typical Sunday-service songbook: Filtering the group’s Congos-style harmonies through a free-floating dubby haze, Heavy Sun delivers the sort of spiritual experience that even secular listeners can appreciate. “You can think of Heavy Sun as some kind of enlightenment—a crack of light in the door in dark times,” Lanois says. “We just wanted to make something that sounded hopeful and had a positive energy in it. I've got plenty of sad songs in me, but I didn't want to put them on this record.”

Tracklist
1. Dance On (04:27)
2. Power (03:18)
3. Every Nation (04:00)
4. Way Down (03:45)
5. Please Don't Try (04:11)
6. Tree of Tule (04:20)
7. Tumbling Stone (03:32)
8. Angels Watching (04:08)
9. (Under the) Heavy Sun (03:25)
10. Mother's Eyes (02:55)
11. Out of Sight (03:45)