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Nicolas Meier

Yüz

Naim naimcd 103

Swiss guitarist Nicolas Meier, since the release of his acclaimed album Orient, anyhow, is known for his ability to mix airy fusion (somewhat reminiscent of Pat Metheny at his most winsome) with the sounds and rhythms of Turkish music, and for this album he has enlisted the perfect partners: reedsman Gilad Atzmon, bassist Tom Mason and drummer Asaf Sirkis.

Meier moves easily between filigree-delicate fingerpicked acoustic guitar, synth guitar and the saz, a long-necked Turkish lute that produces a beautifully plangent, shimmering sound, and his compositions, too, unaffectedly incorporate the soaring, plaintive melodies associated with fusion and the intense, whirling rhythms of Turkish music into an infectious and entirely natural-sounding whole.

Atzmon, with his penchant for moving between pleasantly strident fusion and harsh Middle Eastern-flavoured skirls, might have been specially created to play Meier's music, and with Asaf Sirkis and Tom Mason on board ° the former rolling and tumbling rapturously through the up-tempo pieces and gently but intensely propelling the slower material, the latter consistently solid and eloquent – this is compelling, absorbing, yet exhilaratingly exuberant music that promises much from the band's forthcoming UK tour.