Pat Metheny Creates Robot Army, Programs it to Play Smooth Jazz™

My relationship with Pat Metheny is not exactly an open-armed one: while I appreciate his skill on the guitar, I have often found much of his output to be hovering around or about what you'd typically call "elevator music". But I continue to respect him thanks to his occasional forays into things that are decided NOT that mellow, like Song X and Zero Tolerance for Silence. Plus, I love his work on Electric Counterpoint though I guess that's technically more Reich's fault.

So I have to admit real surprise at what he's done on his new album Orchestrion: he's used solenoid technology to "play" all of the instruments live while he plays along with his guitar - instead of overdubbing everything, he's essentially programmed a bunch of robotics to play the instruments along with him.

In one sense this reminds me a lot of Raymond Scott's ditching his players in favour of electronics - it's a brilliant musical genius move in one way, because he gets to control absolutely everything about the performance. Unlike Scott, however, he's able to play actual instruments instead of having to create electronic ones. And the most surprising thing to me about the whole thing is that it's completely non-robotic sounding: these machines actually play with a certain amount of fluidity, to the point that you'd probably never guess that there were machines involved in the recording process.

Now that said, I'm not 100% sure that the music is something I'm going to engage with in any great way: for all the innovation in the way it's done, it reminds me much more of his ultra-mellow (but admittedly admirably proficient) lite jazz. So in the end, I'm not sure what to think. Anyone else have any opinions on this?

Album's officially out next Tuesday. You can catch a preview of the tech in action here:
http://www.nonesuch.com/media/videos/pat-metheny-introduces-orchestrion

he's done a bunch of stuff that's actually a lot further afield than his rep suggests - Thurston Moore's a big fan. but then again I love the mellow fusion-y Metheny too, really hits all the right spots for me

Yeah tbh I MAY be learning to enjoy the lighter side of Metheny more these days anyhow. But I'm still not ready to wholeheartedly embrace it.

That video is amazing!

He should have robot bears in overalls "playing" these instruments the next time he tours.

Get thee to Song X, Sean.

Yep - already got that one (and Zero Tolerance)...any other suggestions for the more edgy stuff certainly welcome too!

Try and find The Sign of Four, which is a four-way improv session featuring Derek Bailey and drummers Paul Wertico and Gregg Bendian. It's pretty ferocious.

Can't say enough great things about The Way Up, deftly incorporates lots of new sounds (Cuong Vu's metal trumpet, Gregoire Maret's harmonica) and his playing is FIRE IN THE HOLE.

wow that video is some rad mad scientist shit imo. i don't have much of an opinion on metheny either way but it sounds like a cool experiment.