The Meridian Suite

 180 gram Vinyl 

This first pressing 180 gram black vinyl 2LP contains two bonus tracks by Antonio Sanchez & Migration that were not included in the previously released CD. The bonus tracks are Greedy Silence (recorded at Sear Sound Studios NYC in 2007; Recording & Mixing engineer Joe Ferla), and New Life (recorded at MSR Studios NYC in 2012; Recording & Mixing engineer Pete Karam).

LP1 SIDE A: 1.Grids And Patterns  2.Imaginary Lines  SIDE B: 1.Channels Of Energy  2.Magnetic Currents 

LP2 SIDE A: 1.Pathways Of The Mind  SIDE B: 1.Greedy Silence (*)   2.New Life (*)

The Meridian Suite encompasses everything I am today as a composer, an artist and a human being. I found that this long-form way of writing brought out a wide range of influences from my musical identity that would have been very hard to put into a cohesive album if they existed as separate entities.  ...I wanted to create imaginary lines in which motifs, emotions, ideas and melodies flow, meet and intertwine… the way Meridians do. (Antonio Sanchez)

The suite takes full advantage of the versatility and wide-ranging palette of Migration, the quartet that Sanchez has led since 2011. Tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake doubles on Electric Wind Instrument (EWI), John Escreet on piano and Fender Rhodes, and Matt Brewer on both acoustic and electric bass. Sanchez also layered keyboard atmospherics onto the album in post-production along with a wide array of guitars from Adam Rogers, while singer Thana Alexa contributes soaring lyrics to the second movement, "Imaginary Lines", and coloristic wordless vocals elsewhere.  The seed of the suite was planted while Sanchez was on tour with Metheny in Meridian, Mississippi in 2012. The title was originally a makeshift file name, but took on greater meaning as Sanchez began to research the idea of meridians, imaginary lines that circle the globe, the celestial sphere, or, in some new age conceptions, the body's energy field. "You have meridians that cross the earth, that cross the sky, that cross our bodies and our minds, and I started getting fascinated by the way meridians interact in all those different shapes and forms", Sanchez says. "So I thought it was a very good analogy for the way the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic aspects of this composition intertwine, interact and meet over the course of the whole piece".  The scale of the suite derived from Sanchez's determination not to place limits on his compositional imagination. (...)