NEIL YOUNG - LE NOISE

Whether as a singer, a songwriter or a guitarist, Neil Young has been one of the most influential and important artists of the rock era. Blending folk, country and rock, the acoustic and the electric, the melancholy and the hopeful, Young has been an icon for the uncompromising and unpredictable since the 1960s. It’s no surprise then that his newest release is something just a little different.

Le Noise is a collaboration between the acclaimed rock icon and musician, songwriter, and producer Daniel Lanois, known for his work with U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, The Neville Brothers and many others. Young and Lanois have crossed paths musically over the course of many years, including performances at Young's Bridge School Benefit Concert and at Farm Aid when Lanois was Willie Nelson's music director, but this is the first time the two have recorded together.

Recorded in Lanois' home in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles, Le Noise features Young on acoustic and electric guitars with Lanois adding his trademark sonic textures, creating one of the most sonically arresting albums Young has ever recorded. No band, no overdubs, just "a man on a stool and me doing a nice job on the recording," as Lanois puts it.

Lanois says. "He (Neil) walked in the door and I put an acoustic guitar into his hands - one that I had been working on to build a new sound. I wanted him to understand that I've spent years dedicated to the sonics in my home and that I wanted to give him something he'd never heard before. He picked up that instrument, which had everything - an acoustic sound, electronica, bass sounds - and he knew as soon as he played it that we had taken the acoustic guitar to a new level. It's hard to come up with a new sound at the back end of 50 years of rock and roll, but I think we did it."