When Daniel Lanois and U2 get together in the studio, magical things usually happen — as was the case with their most-recent effort, 2005’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which picked up a best-album Grammy last year.

This time out, the followup disc is proving no exception, judging from the brief footage of Lanois, co-producer Brian Eno and the Irish band at work in Fez, Morocco, in the new Lanois documentary, Here Is What Is.

“The results are fantastic, some of the best results we’ve ever had,” Lanois told Sun Media recently.

“I think everybody’s hungry for something fresh. I’m feeling the same feeling in the air when we did (the more experimental 1991 disc) Achtung Baby. I think it’s performance-based.”

The previous two U2 records, Bomb and All That You Can’t Leave Behind, have been more straight-ahead rock efforts, but U2 has consistently gone out on a limb over the course of its career.

“We’re huddling back up in November,” said Lanois of working on the new U2 record.

“Larry Mullen’s one of my favourite drummers, so I like to be in his presence and I know what he’s great at and that’s what I want to get on the record.”

- JANE STEVENSON, SUN MEDIA

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