Rodrigo y Gabriela nominated for first-ever Grammy award
Acclaimed guitar virtuosos Rodrigo y Gabriela have been nominated for a “Best Contemporary Instrumental Album” Grammy for their latest release, METTAVOLUTION. This marks the first time the duo has ever been nominated. METTAVOLUTION is available now via ATO Records. It’s Rodrigo y Gabriela’s fifth studio LP and first album in five years, METTAVOLUTION entered Billboard’s “Americana/Folk Albums” chart at #1 with 1st week equivalents in excess of 11,000 – Rodrigo y Gabriela’s second best sales week ever. In addition, the new album arrived at #2 on Billboard’s “Rock Albums,” as well as #10 on “Top Album Sales” and #71 on the overall SoundScan/Billboard 200.
METTAVOLUTION also earned critical acclaim to match its popular success. “For Rodrigo y Gabriela, the meditation is actually in the swirl of notes and rhythmic strums that circle around their music,” wrote NPR’s First Listen. “And if we follow their lead, there is a meditative quality for the listener as well. 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.” “METTAVOLUTION finds the duo locked back in,” wrote Glide, “and where their last record was dedicated to their influences, this time it is all about the visceral primal passion of playing and what originally connected them to music. The title track opener kicks a rock beat behind the guitar strums as the producer David Sardy loads up the bass, shaker and voice synths to propel the sound forward.” Pitchfork praised the album’s original material, writing, “The crunching ‘Terracentric’ and the blurrily agile lines on ‘Witness Tree’ move like hand-cranked cars on a slotted track, wound up by Rodrigo y Gabriela’s extremely athletic wrists and then turned loose. The dance break ‘Cumbé’ and its slower-breathing follower ‘Electric Soul’ simmer down a bit and lay out their chemistry more simply, to warmer and more pleasant effect, but the dominant energy in part one is fast, heavy, and relentlessly precise… METTAVOLUTION reassures that for as long as they’re around, Rodrigo y Gabriela will be echoing their influences as only they can.”
METTAVOLUTION marks the most ambitious music of Rodrigo y Gabriela’s remarkable two-decade career. 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. Conceived and composed in their studio in Ixtapa on the Mexican Pacific Coast, the music of METTAVOLUTION was 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.
RODRIGO Y GABRIELA
NORTH AMERICAN TOUR 2019/20
NOVEMBER
20 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater
22 – Madison, WI – The Sylvee
23 – Cedar Rapids, IA – Paramount Theatre
24 – Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre
26 – Joliet, IL – Rialto Square Theatre
27 – Louisville, KY – The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts
29 – McKee’s Rocks, PA – Roxian Theatre
30 – Harrisburg, PA – The Forum Auditorium
DECEMBER
2 – Durham, NC – Durham Performing Arts Center
3 – Asheville, NC –Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
4 – Charleston, SC – Charleston Gaillard Center
6 – Miami Beach, FL – The Fillmore Miami Beach
MARCH 2020
12 – Sugar Land, TX – Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land
20-21 – Monterrey, Mexico – Tecate Pa’l Norte Festival *
* FESTIVAL APPEARANCE
http://www.rodgab.com/tour-dates