METTAVOLUTION OUT NOW VIA ATO RECORDS
credit: Ebru Yildiz
“Rodrigo y Gabriela has a hard act to follow every time they release an album: themselves…Mettavolution closes with a 19-minute version of “Echoes,” Pink Floyd’s rock masterpiece famously performed live in an ancient Roman amphitheater in Pompeii, Italy. Like its masterful catalog, Rodrigo y Gabriela gives the music new life with just two guitars.”
“With a relentless and thought-out counterpoint of rhythm and melody that renders percussion (and vocals) unnecessary, Rodrigo and Gabriela’s signature acoustic sound, grounded on heavy metal influences, is virtuoso rock ‘n roll.”
Rodrigo y Gabriela have announced new US live dates for the fall, beginning in Sugar Land, TX, on November 15, and ending in Miami Beach, FL, on December 6, with a slew of dates throughout the midwest and southeast in between. Rodrigo y Gabriela have been bringing their incendiary stage performance to fans across the globe in support of their latest album, METTAVOLUTION. The acoustic duo’s first album in five years, METTAVOLUTION marks the most ambitious music of Rodrigo y Gabriela’s remarkable two-decade career and was one of NPR’s top 6 albums of the week upon release. Three years in the making, the LP embraces the duo’s passionate interest in Buddhism, the history of human evolution and the liberation of the potential we have as a species, all expressed through the medium of two acoustic guitars.
Mettavolution? “Metta” is a Sanskrit word for the meditative condition that produces compassion and benevolence. It is a “practical state of mind” as well, according to Gabriela, “something you practice like an instrument to become a better citizen, in a more evolved place.” Conceived and composed in their studio in Ixtapa on the Mexican Pacific Coast, the music of METTAVOLUTIONwas road-tested around the world on tour in 2017 and 2018 before being recorded late last year in Los Angeles with multiple GRAMMY-winning producer Dave Sardy (Oasis, LCD Soundsystem, A Perfect Circle, Band of Horses) behind the board.
METTAVOLUTION gathers six white-hot new Rodrigo y Gabriela compositions – much of which acknowledge the duo’s thrash-metal roots back in Mexico City – as well as an inspired, side-long cover of Pink Floyd’s sprawling “Echoes” – originally found on 1971’s MEDDLE – audaciously reimagined for two acoustic guitars. Rolling Stone hailed the 19-minute epic as a “Song You Need to Know,” noting, “‘Echoes’ is such a signature song, it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing it justice, yet somehow the Mexican acoustic-rock duo Rodrigo y Gabriela landed on a brilliant interpretation…Like the original, the song is its own journey, and it’s beautiful.”
The title track and first single, “Mettavolution” garnered strong support at Triple A radio and was celebrated with a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! with dance choreography by David Byrne collaborator Annie-B Parson.
WATCH ”METTAVOLUTION” ON JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!
courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
METTAVOLUTION has been getting stellar reviews:
“Whether in playing covers, honoring another artist’s body of work, or just filtering one generations-old style of music through the language of another. Mettavolution reassures that for as long as they’re around, Rodrigo y Gabriela will be echoing their influences as only they can.”
“As a whole, Mettavolution stands as a sweeping search for human meaning and social responsibility in our age of crisis…Beauty, anguish, and euphoria, it’s all here, wrapped up in a visceral earthly music struggling toward enlightenment.”
“One of their most spectacular efforts yet.”
One of the world’s most in-demand live acts, Rodrigo y Gabriela have spent much of their remarkable 20-year career performing on increasingly larger stages around the globe. Highlights include sold out shows at such legendary venues as New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, Los Angeles, CA’s Hollywood Bowl, Morrison, CO’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and Paris, FR’s Le Zenith, along with countless other theaters and concert halls in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan.
RODRIGO Y GABRIELA
FALL TOUR 2019
November
15 – Sugar Land, TX – Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land
16 – Dallas, TX – South Side Music Hall
17 – Oklahoma City, OK – The Jones Assembly
19 – St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
20 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater
22 – Madison, WI – The Sylvee
23 – Cedar Rapids, IA – Paramount Theater
24 – Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre
26 – Joliet, IL – Rialto Square Theatre
27 – Louisville, KY – Brown Theatre
29 – McKees Rocks, PA – Roxian Theatre
30 – Harrisburg, PA – The Forum Auditorium
December
2 – Durham, NC – Durham Perfomring Arts Center
3 – Asheville, NC – Thomas Wolfe Civic Center Auditorium
4 – Charleston, SC – Charleston Gallard Center
6 – Miami Beach, FL – The Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater
# # #
CONNECT WITH RODRIGO Y GABRIELA:
# # #