Daniel Lanois & Rocco DeLuca - Goodbye To Language (2016/2025) [Official Digital Download 24/48]

Goodbye To Language is the perfect joining of the dots, through the world-changing experiments of Daniel’s early days with Brian Eno, to his flights through the most rarefied atmospheres of the mainstream of music. Constructed entirely from the sounds of the pedal steel guitar, Daniel on the pedal steel and his mate Rocco Deluca on the lap steel with compositional rigour that recalls the 20th century dreamscapes of Ravel and Debussy, with a sense of sonic futurism and yet also with the naturalness that can only come from someone rooted in centuries of grassroots music.

Some time back in the presence of Ryan Worrall (my co-producer) and Dangerous Wayne Lorenz (my long time friend, master recordist and music arranger) I decided that it was time to make a steel guitar record. My mates agreed and off we went.

Into the open hearth, we prayed to the gods of steel. Ingots flared down into the blast furnace. We went to the valley below and as we looked, we saw the mountaintop. Lo and behold, our first title Deconstruction was born. The symphonic power appealed to all of us.

Touring began, and I joined my good friend and cohort Rocco Deluca. We traveled to Spain, Istanbul and Ireland. He on low strung lap steel and me on my old friend the Sho-Bud. The harmonics collided and we became one. Back in the studio, Rocco gifted me with a substantial rock to stand on. I was now free to explore high melody lines as Rocco provided earth tones reminiscent of my early days at the altar.

In London, Eno introduced me to a new gadget, a sweet little sampler that I bolted onto my steel guitar, my new secret weapon. Symphonies were our friend and our excursions took us to the unknown. We saw places that had never been, newborns wandering in old skins. We heard the sound of Les Voies Bulgare, saw Himalayan Mountains, Satie was there. The ghosts of Stravinsky and Wagner waved their batons, we never looked back, we played on. They pushed and chanted till we said no more. The taunting never stopped till we knew and forgot. All that we had learnt fell by the wayside and there we were, pure and simple left with life experience at our fingertips.

The music of our slide guitars with a little help from studio explosions holds in it (I hope) what I love about art, its capacity to pull an emotion from a listener.

The steel city never left me and my first love is still with me. My steel guitar, my little church in a suitcase.

"Using only pedal steel, lap steel, and effects, Lanois turns traditional sounds into ambient and effortless music, brilliantly masking the complexity of its source." (Philip Sherburne, pitchfork.com)

"At the same time, Goodbye To Language is the rare example of instrumental music that encourages — maybe even demands — reflection on its title. Lanois isn’t peddling any theories about what happens when language shifts from written images and metaphors to stark symbols. But by working outside typical song form, and distancing himself from the imperative to generate ear-pleasing ideas that recur at regular intervals, he’s suggesting it’s time to at least consider communication at the root-menu level, and think about what’s worth keeping and what to discard. Because it’s important to have some agency in this decision, before we unwittingly find ourselves waving a tiny cartoon character’s gloved-hand goodbye to language." (Tyler Hale, kcrw com)

Daniel Lanois, pedal steel guitar, treatments
Rocco Deluca, lap steel

Tracklist:
01. Low Sudden
02. Time On
03. Falling Stanley
04. Deconstruction
05. Satie
06. Three Hills
07. Heavy Sun
08. The Cave
09. East Side
10. Later That Night
11. Suspended
12. Blue Diamond


Thanks to the Original customer!