I approached this one with skepticism – how many more albums of standards do we need to hear? However, a few things intrigued me. Firstly, this was a solo acoustic album and the standards were major radio hits from the 60s and 70s that a lot of us absorbed growing up. But from the first few bars of track one, I was transported somewhere else, as Metheny extracted the most otherworldly sounds from a specially made 42-string harp guitar, on a sonic journey in and around the six-minute-plus easterly drift that was Paul Simon’s ‘Sounds of Silence’.

This is Metheny late at night with a few acoustic guitars and altered tunings, letting his muse take him – with a minimum of studio effects and overdubbing. Other highlights include the strum-fest of surf guitar hit ‘Pipeline’ and a beautiful bossa nova style of the Beatles tune ‘And I Love Her’ on a nylon string guitar. Let’s hope Metheny has enough time and commitment to retune those 42-strings and do a whole album.