In his near-constant search for new music on his 6Music show, Stephen Merchant leaves no stone unturned. To the extent that he includes older tracks alongside the latest releases, reasoning that music can be new to a listener if they haven’t heard it before. It’s an approach to find where it’s at shared by Daniel Lanois.

Otherwise why call your album and accompanying documentary film Here Is What Is? Before, and indeed during, Lanois earning a reputation as the producer of his generation for his work with the likes of U2, Willie Nelson, and Emmylou Harris he garnered acclaim as an artist in his own right. Here Is What Is is his fifth solo long-player.

Like a Paul Auster novel, this album contains echoes of earlier works. Some fainter than others, it has to be said. His rendition of Emmylou Harris’s ‘Where Will I Be’, for example, is a pale shadow of the original but it’s a rare falter from one following mentor Brian Eno’s assured alt-rock footsteps.

(4/5)