Pekka Pohjola—the modern day rock equivalent of Beethoven or Sibelius—was a major composer and studio wizard back in the '70s and '80s in his native Finland. Pekka is joined by a number of fine U.S. players here including Steve Vai, JoeSatriani, Mike Stern, Steve Lukather, who all contribute one track on a 13 track, various artist, 2008 CD retrospective entitled The Dream Of The Electric Guitars, released Stateside by Miami based Kithara Records. With the Pohjola track dating back to his ‘93 Pewit album—with fusion guitarist Markku Kanerva in his group then—and the tracks by Vai and Satch dating back to the early ‘90s, Dream acts like an effective compilation / sampler featuring many different guitarists—the similar thread being the original, high quality jazz-rock instrumentals each artist here brings. Established modern composers like Pohjola, Mo Foster—here with British blues guitar god Gary Moore—and Derek Sherinian, the track with Lukather, mix things up with guitar heroes including early Santana / Journey slinger Neil Schon, metal god Marty Friedman and much more. Nieto must have pulled a number of strings himself to bring his well thought out guitar dream idea to the attention of these illustrious guitar slingers. No matter what your persuasion of modern electric guitar, there’s plenty of high quality earmeal for fusion fans here! www.guitar9.com

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