In the late '80s and early '90s John McLaughlin recorded and performed live with a trio including bassist Kai Eckhardt and percussionist Trilok Gurtu. The group recorded two albums: "Live at The Royal Festival Hall" and "Que Alegria", with latter featuring Dominique DiPiazza on bass for all but two tracks. These recordings saw a return to acoustic instruments for McLaughlin, performing on nylon-string guitar. On "Live at the Royal Festival Hall" McLaughlin utilised a unique guitar synth (from Wikipedia "... the Photon guitar synthesiser, a setup whereby transducers mounted on an acoustic guitar are used to control a synthesiser bank via MIDI. This enables McLaughlin to invoke a range of sounds and effects normally the preserve of keyboard players, resulting in a greater variety of moods and textures than might be assumed from the line-up..." ) which enabled him to effectively "loop" guitar parts and play over them live. The synth also featured a pedal which provided sustain when pressed. McLaughlin played parts which sound overdubbed and creating lush soundscapes, aided by Gurtu's unique percussive sounds. This approach is used to great effect in the track "Florianapolis", amongst others.

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