Customer Reviews

Acadie

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album is one of the best kept secrets of the last 20 years. It's my favourite album of all time, and I know how loosely these accolades can be thrown around. Acadie has folk roots and a crystaline, unique honesty - it is by turns melodic, bluesy, perfectly produced and yet somehow human and imperfect. You're always chasing it, tantalised by something you can't quite put your finger on. At the same time it is experimental and addictive - two elements that rarely meet. The album has a selflessness that gives it a warm spiritual quality. Quite simply, it's one of music's finest minds letting us in with powerful, spirtual, haunted songs. Everyone will have their favourites on this CD - for me, I cannot look past The Maker or St Anne's Gold. All of Lanois' work is worth a look but he is yet to top this. A masterpiece.

What can I add that hasn't already been said here? This is my favourite album of all time, and I know how loosely these accolades can be thrown around. Acadie has folk roots and a crystaline, unique honesty - it is melodic, bluesy, perfectly produced and yet somehow human and imperfect. You're always chasing it, tantalised by something you can't quite put your finger on. At the same time it is experimental and addictive. The album has a selflessness that gives it a warm spiritual quality. Quite simply, it's one of music's finest minds letting us in with powerful, spirtual, haunted songs. Everyone will have their favourites on this CD - for me, I cannot look past The Maker or St Anne's Gold. All of Lanois' work is worth a look but he is yet to top this. A masterpiece.

I first heard Acadie while living in New Orleans, in fact I saw Daniel play/preview the album at Tipitina's. He was living in New Orleans at the time. To this day, listening to Acadie provokes an intense emotional reaction. So atmospheric, so wistful, so very Acadian. Nothing makes me miss New Orleans like Acadie does.

For an even greater treat, check out the Neville Brother's "Yellow Moon", produced like Lanois during his residency in New Orleans. While other producers saw the Nevilles as some cheesy Mardi Gras novelty act, Lanois saw them for what they really are: a living connection to the past, with threads of all the amazing stages of development in New Orleans music, from Congo Square straight back to Africa. A stunning work, and possibly my favorite album of all time.

Millions of people visit New Orleans, but I'm not sure how many people truly "get" New Orleans. New Orleans is more than just Bourbon St. It's a place of magic and mystery, of ghosts and history, and it got under my skin like no place ever has. What an amazing accomplishment to capture this on record as Lanois has on Acadie and Yellow Moon. Essential listening.

this album of daniel lanois is worth far more than 5 stars. i would give this album 100 out of 100. this man's voice is very haunting.i love 'the maker' and 'still water' these 2 songs are just out of this world. buy this album and you will know what i mean and whoever else loves this album will understand and know what i mean.
happy listening. i love elvis presley & rock 'n' roll but! this album is really fantastic. thank you daniel.

Confession time. I can't get enough of that Daniel Lanois sound. Like other great studio wizards, his touch is unmistakable. On other people's albums such as U2 and Emmylou Harris, some listeners might find the trademark Lanois sound palette a tad too intrusive. Personally I love it.

On Acadie, it's entirely his own show. The songs are simple and rarely less than lovely. There's the big sweeping soundscape of "Still Water" and "The Maker" and the sparse intimacy of "Silium's Hill". The final flourish says it all - "Amazing Grace" as you've never heard it before, with Aaron Neville warbling like an angel seguing into a trademark Lanois reverb coda of heroic proportions.

This album will happily create an ambience in the background, but also richly reward the most attentive listening. I hesitated between a four and a five - don't want to devalue my currency! - but the heart says definitely a five.

Maybe I am just adding to the chorus...but this is one of the best, most enduring albums I've ever heard. I first started listening to it in 1990, my girlfriend's copy, then bought the CD a few years after we split up & was blown away once again. This morning I am listening as iTunes rips it to mp3 & every song still sounds fresh and enchanting. Pure brilliance. _For the Beauty of Wynona_ was a letdown for me after this, & I haven't listened to the other one. But I could listen to _Acadia_ day after day and never tire of it.

'Arcadie', to my ears, is easily the most attractive, the most stylish of Lanoise's three outings. This may be the result, at the time, of him working more surely within his vocal limits. His is not an unexpressive voice, but it has little of the warmth or expansiveness that he imbues in his soundscapes. And here, when reflecting on domesticity and fatherhood, the voice is pitched just right. It is quite possible to be transported by his music without giving much attention to his singing. This might be going too far, and I'm grateful that he brought this music into existence. A composite disc from the three would be impressive. As it stands, Lanoise will be best enjoyed as the genius producer of many fine albumns; U2, Dylan, Emmy Lou, Robbie Robertson,The Neville's, 'Yellow Moon', and may the list continue.

This album must rank as one of the greatest influences in modern music. Its sound, arrangement and production have inspired and been incoprated into the work of many other artists from Emmylou Harris' "Wrecking Ball" to much of U2's work.

The lyrics are superb, haunting and mesmeric. Each song tells a story and touches a nerve. Lanois voice is dark, broody and yet he can still reach the high notes with ease.

The music sets the standard for all other albums to follow and "Wrecking Ball" comes very very close.

This man is nothing short of a genuis. He sings, He plays, he tells a story and it is all done without the slightest hint of effort. You *WILL* come back to him again and again and again.

And as a bonus you get the Neville brothers!

Listen to "The Maker" and "O Marie" to get just the tiniest hint of what this has to offer.

Treat yourself or someone special to you and buy it.

This is by far the best CD I've ever owned. It's haunting, it's full of vivid memories I can relate to seeing how Jolie Louise was written about a city less than 5 minutes from my house. This album has pulled me out of the deepest darkest moments life throws unexpectedly at you. As eerie as it sounds, this will be the CD playing at my funeral whenever that day should come. That's not to say this is funeral music by any means of the imagination, I want it played because it invokes so many emotions and inspirations.

You will recognize Lanois' style, even if you have never heard him play before. The albums that Daniel Lanois produces have a marvelous "open" quality, with plenty of space between the sounds, and between the layers.

In his mixed French & English ballads, you will feel the joys of being a man, and the pain that we all feel.

In this largely-acoustic album, Lanois pulled together work that he'd had lying around, incomplete, for some time. These were the pieces which were ripe, right at this moment, for picking.

Particularly compelling is the track "The Maker," featuring a peculiar double rhythm guitar track and a Willy Green drum track, which Lanois had had sitting around for 2 years, since his last Nevilles album. You will never hear another rhythm track this precise, this startlingly clean, from the first beat to the last.