Jazz breaking news: Pat Metheny back with epic live Orchestrion double album
Monday, November 19, 2012
Nonesuch records have confirmed that multi-award winning guitar icon Pat Metheny’s new album, The Orchestrion Project, will be released early next year on 28 January 2013.
Playing over 100 concerts in 2010 with his extraordinary mechanised mini-orchestra, the two-disc album features 13 tunes recorded live in Brooklyn, New York, at the end of this mammoth concert series. The results are a culmination of months of playing, and mastering, this extraordinary array of instruments – all computer controlled by Metheny’s guitar.
The album features the five-part ‘Orchestrion’ suite, a fiendishly complex piece, alongside eight Metheny originals, all arranged specially for the expansive sound palette of the Orchestrion. Notably the computer-controlled system is hugely dynamic; responding to the slightest touch on the guitar, in turn triggering myriad sounds from several pianos, drum kits, marimbas, ‘guitar-bots’, dozens of percussion instruments and even cabinets of carefully tuned bottles.
This album follows on from the widely acclaimed Unity Band project, featuring sax star Chris Potter, long time Metheny Group drummer Antonio Sanchéz and fast rising bassist Ben Williams. While the majority of the Unity Band live set featured the quartet, the Orchestrion also made an appearance on their concerts, and thanks to Metheny’s command of the complex musical machinery, the device was seamlessly integrated into the band’s sound.
For more go to www.nonesuch.com
– Mike Flynn