Live Review: Daniel Lanois • Epiphany Center for the Arts • Chicago
Photo: Laura Cole. Via Missing Piece Group.
Daniel Lanois
Epiphany Center for the Arts
Chicago
Friday, April 4, 2025
Review and live photos by Jeff Elbel
Friday’s performance in the ornate Sanctuary at Chicago’s Epiphany Center for the Arts was the latest entry in the venue’s second season of Reflections concerts. The series offers local fans of ambient music an immersive experience in sound and light in a beautiful and meditative space.
Lanois worked from two stations on stage throughout the evening. One position was seated at his pedal steel guitar, and another was standing behind a “dub station” of electronic equipment that mimicked his California recording studio. In real time, Lanois manipulated samples and recorded sounds that drew from recognizable themes heard on ambient albums such as Belladonna, Goodbye to Language, and especially Flesh and Machine. The familiar elements were sculpted into new shapes.
Opening piece “Forrest City” unfolded with an enveloping and angelic drone. The sound was interrupted by bright, evanescent tones that echoed from the hall’s vaulted ceiling and exposed timbers. Lanois worked buttons, knobs, and dials alongside his studio and stage partner Wayne Lorenz, often conferring over the treatments and controls to frame the next sonic movement. The sound was loud enough to feel within the chest, with a deep resonating hum as an undercurrent.
Lanois then moved to his pedal steel guitar, coaxing shimmering sounds that were drenched in reverb and delay. The darkened room was illuminated with fleeting bands of undulating light, appearing and vanishing like elastic lightning or monochromatic aurorae. The visual presentation crafted by Nate Boyce of Pedagogy (and formerly with Matmos) changed throughout the evening. Sights included mesmerizing displays of color and projection-mapped visuals within the darkened room as well as light from exterior sources that shone through the 140-year-old church building’s stained-glass windows.
The reflective “J.J. Leaves LA” was the evening’s most wholly recognizable song. Lanois coaxed hypnotic tones from his pedal steel, dovetailed with stirring melody and emotive swells of harmony.
Lanois’ pedal steel sound drew upon influences from folk and roots styles and blended those with unconventional techniques into spacious and expansive tones that are not typically associated with the instrument or with country music. Uplifting, gospel-influenced elements contrasted with darker, angry textures like those heard on Flesh and Machine’s warlike “The End” and the steel’s familiar mournful, weeping tones.
Returning to his dub station, Lanois joined Lorenz to craft evocative moods from a variety of sources. The improvised jazz drumming of Belladonna collaborator Brian Blade Jr. drifted through a galactic haze of sound, twisting in and out of focus. An acapella recording of Aaron Neville singing “Amazing Grace” seemed like a natural fit in the sacred space. Lanois responded to the moment with his eyes closed and head tilted back in reverie.
Another audio collage incorporated Emmylou Harris’ wordless vocal recorded for “Shenandoah” from the Sling Blade soundtrack . Perhaps not coincidentally, Harris was in town playing simultaneously to the north at SPACE in Evanston.
Lanois returned to the steel guitar for an aural benediction while Lorenz remained behind the racks of electronics to alter sounds and atmospheres. An interpolation of “Opera” from Flesh and Machine with its ghostly countermelody crept and grew toward a crescendo. The soundscape was built atop a frenetic drum loop with a skittering snare.
In addition to recognizable themes and movements, Lanois and Lorenz performed music from new compositions planned for upcoming releases. Some fresh material presented at Epiphany may appear on a project possibly called Belladonna II to accompany an anniversary reissue of 2005’s pedal steel-focused Belladonna. Lanois has reported that he has recorded Brian Blade Jr.’s drum contributions for the project, and that he will return to work on the new recordings following his brief string of solo ambient dates.
With its various movements, the set unfolded as a single, 70-minute performance. Following “Opera,” Lanois gave the audience a warm greeting and farewell. He expressed delight atthe inspiring setting and voiced appreciation for the work of Reflections’ artistic director Bob Maynard and his “indefatigable” team. “They’re doing something beautiful here,” said Lanois. He then focused his comments on the audience. “What a congregation,” said Lanois. “All denominations, all the way from saints to sinners. Everybody’s invited.”
Information on upcoming Reflections events at Epiphany Center for the Arts can be found at epiphanychi.com.
Category: Live Reviews
