Not many modern country legends have traveled through their careers with the wherewithal, grace and vision of Emmylou Harris. More than twenty years after helping Gram Parsons reinvent country with so-called Cosmic American music, Harris is still tinkering with the genre's songwriting conventions and the sounds she uses to illustrate the words she sings.

Enter Daniel Lanois: erstwhile protege of Brian Eno, producer to U2, Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson, and a visionary artist in his own right who mixes the Louisiana music of his Acadian ancestry with the ambient settings of his modernist mentor.

On Wrecking Ball, he is the perfect foil for Harris' spiritual explorations, casting her in a light that has little in common with Nashville's neon glow.