Title: Bright, Spare, Varied, and Moving
Review: This is not your typical Pat Metheny Group recording. While most tracks retain the kind of accessibility that drew a whole new generation of listeners into the world of Jazz, the album moves to a much more sophisticated and drier (i.e. less saccharine) space than some of the PMG albums that immediately precede it. Part of its strength is its great variability: it ranges from the contemplative through the celebratory and the powerful, sometimes verging on the eerie or painful. The rhythms and harmonies have a sophistication rarely touched in the recordings that preceded it. It stands up to repeated listening better than just about any recording of any type in my library.
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