Dream Box

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The new compositions are highlights, tracing their central motifs to unexpected destinations. While some of Metheny’s best original work this century has spoken to his ambition as a composer (2005’s The Way Up), his aim here is for simple but immersive mood-setting. After an introduction of electric guitar against chiming, slightly dissonant acoustic chords, the gorgeous “Ole & Gard” swiftly finds its feet and cycles through various settings to return to a recurring bluesy refrain. “From the Mountains” is more formless but just as memorable, navigating its eight-minute runtime with a dreamy sense of focus: The effect is like watching the sun rise over an unfamiliar city, new contours filling in as the light starts to spread. Despite a catalog of 50 recordings that have won 20 Grammys in twelve different categories, Metheny’s “complex and restlessly curious musical sensibility” (The Guardian) continues to lead him in new directions. As Pat says in the liner notes: Album info: Pat Metheny: Dream Box Label: BMG Modern Recordings Release date: June 16, 2023 Format: CD, vinyl and digital

Some commentators have suggested that his approach to integrating technology makes him a fore-runner or precursor of Artificial Intelligence. Here again he is clear as to the parts he wants to embrace and the aspects that simply have no interest for him at all in his permanent striving to be a better musician: “When I think about how to apply my interest in music through the prism of what tech offers I feel very strongly that – as the tech saying has it – ‘Garbage in. Garbage out’. If you don’t have a good story to tell, a good melody, and you can’t play that good, none of this is going to help. It is just going to amplify that it isn’t happening….” He said that the true answer to the question of his attitude to technology is that he has no fear, “I’m like: ‘Yeah, bring it on!’ To me they are more tools, just another way to be. It is another way to find a window or a trap door into this ever-expanding house that I have been working on.” But dreams in their broadest sense make up the vibe with this set. Music exists for me in an elusive state, often at its best when discovered apart from any particular intention. Metheny's discography is a testament to his influence and talent, with 50 recordings and 20 Grammy wins across twelve different categories. From his groundbreaking album New Chautauqua, (ECM, 1979), which redefined instrumental steel-stringed Americana, to his exploration of free-improv in Zero Tolerance for Silence (Geffen Records, 1994) and the innovative use of technology in The Orchestrion Project, (Nonesuch, 2013) Metheny consistently pushes the boundaries of what a solo performer can achieve.

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In fact, Dream Boxmight become too placid for its own good if it weren’t possible to detect the exertion required for the pinpoint accuracy of the guitarist’s fingering on those respective fretboards. Still, as the palpable tranquility abides during the course of Sammy Kahn’s standard “I Fall In Love Too Easily,” the innate precision ofMetheny’s playing is so sure it ultimately sounds effortless.

For an artist whose name has become synonymous with sleek, smooth hyper-technicality—your guitar teacher’s favorite guitarist—Metheny remains underrated for his unending drive to experiment and challenge himself. While his feathery style on the fretboard remains as distinctive as his robust and permanently windswept mane, no two of his records involve quite the same approach, whether that means finding new collaborators, new instrumentation, or on releases like Dream Box, new ways to channel his creative process.And yet surely, I wondered, Metheny has always been interested in the possibilities of technology, it is part of his essence. He agrees: “I am an electric guitarist. My first act was to plug it in. Cords, knobs and wires are all part of the instrument. I happened to be born at a point that traverses all of this stuff, and my fundamental relationship to knobs wires and electricity has expanded along with it.” Meanwhile, Metheny has a host of tour dates lined up in the U.S. and Europe with his Side-Eye Trio. Launched in 2016 as a platform for up-and-coming players, this iteration features pianist Chris Fishman and drummer Joe Dyson. The Side-Eye tour begins in June and moves to Europe in July. Beginning in September, Metheny launches a fall tour in support of Dream Box with destinations throughout the U.S. I have over 50 CDs and singles on Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and other global music curators. I was inducted into The Kansas Music Hall Of Fame in 2008 with Pat Metheny. I was considered a pioneer in using special tunings on the acoustic guitar in creating my unique, poetic songs. I toured as a “solo” opening act for many iconic bands and artists including: BB King, The Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull, Linda Ronstadt, John Denver, POCO, John Lee Hooker, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Hot Tuna, Brewer & Shipley and MANY others.

Dream Box is Pat Metheny's third date for BMG's Modern Recordings, a set of nine solo tunes for electric guitar, drawn from a folder on his laptop's hard drive. Metheny often records new ideas, covers, or standards by playing them once. During 160 days of touring in 2022, he had ample time to survey the folder's contents. He was surprised when the music he had little memory of recording revealed these "moments in time" as an organic whole. Further, all but one original had compositional roots in the method utilized on "Unity Village" on 1976's Bright Size Life -- an initial harmonic scheme buoyed by a second offering melodic and improvisational sequences. This program contains six original compositions, two standards, and a cover. Longtime fans will find little save for guitar tone in common with earlier solo records such as 1979's New Chautauqua or 2011's What's It All About. It does bear aesthetic and emotional relation to 2004's One Quiet Night, a set of ballads recorded at home solo on an acoustic baritone guitar. But surely Artificial Intelligence also has dangers? He gives a balanced answer: “I know everyone is freaking out about it but for me it is a unique set of possibilities. It will need a lot of decisions on how It gets utilised and the way it gets disseminated.”The title Dream Box has multiple meanings. “Box” is jazz slang for a hollow-body guitar, and Dream Box showcases many different guitar sounds. But the word “dream” is the key here: “Dreams in their broadest sense make up the vibe with this set,” Metheny explains. “Music exists for me in an elusive state, often at its best when discovered apart from any particular intention.” This past year was a particularly busy travel year for me, with about 160 performances worldwide. In the course of all that travel, I found myself returning to that discovered folder lots of times, genuinely surprised at what I was finding in there. And hasn’t the pandemic given him an insight into – a taste for – ‘civilian life’ rather than being out on the road? He admits that it has indeed changed his perspective…but only up to a point. Before going on tour these days, there is, he admits, some self-questioning about whether going out to perform in front of “a bunch of strangers” makes any sense, particularly as his 70th birthday approaches, next year. “But by the second night it will be like ‘I was born to do this’. My metabolism switches to this thing I have been doing since I was sixteen.” Dream Box follows 2021’s studio album Road to the Sun and live recording Side-Eye NYC, making it the third release on Metheny’s own record label Modern Records, an imprint of BMG. With “Trust Your Angels” reminiscent of the faint philosophical undercurrents in recent projects like 2020’s From This Place, a contemplative drama is nevertheless too real on “Ole & Gard.” Along with traces of mysticism in keeping withMetheny’s extended history, further such elements, buoyed by a distinct air of spontaneity, surface in “Clouds Can’t Change The Sky,”.