New Yorker Randy McStine has been busy for the last two decades, since 2005’s “Guitarizm” announced the advent of a fresh force on prog and fusion scenes, and while it was mostly with various ensembles that the American performer would come to the fore, he served up an occasional solo offering too. The last of those arrived less than a year ago, yet on November 1st, eleven months to the date after the robust “Unintentional” saw the light of day and marked another collaboration between McStine and his regular partner-in-rhyme, drummer Marco Minnemann, its follow-up is going to be out.
The album titled “Mutual Hallucinations” was written, recorded and produced, over the course of almost five years, by – of course! – Randy, who sings on it and plays not only acoustic and electric guitars but also bass and piano as well as electric sitar, ukulele, keyboards, percussion and drums, and is notable by the presence of other drummers: McStine’s stellar friends Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison, Nick D’Virgilio and, surely, Minnemann, plus Adam Holzman helping him out in the ivories department. No wonder the esteemed musician calls it his “most ambitious solo work to date” and has had Steven Wilson to take part in the mixing process. The record’s first single “Impossible Door” can already be sampled and savored, and there’s no better display of the master’s multi-instrumental skills.
Mutual Hallucinations
1. Bodies in Space
2. Counterintuitive
3. Adopted Son
4. Send Your Light
5. Economy Of Differences
6. Bask
7. The Scroll
8. Impossible Door
9. Incandescent
10. Remains
