todays Guardian
Posted by: Anna Tooth on 11 November 2005
There's a good review of one of our new titles, Orient by Nicolas Meier, in The Guardian today.
Nicolas Meier, Orient
John Fordham
Friday November 11, 2005
The Guardian
Naim CD091
Nicolas Meier is a Swiss guitarist with a bright reputation in his homeland,
and also in Italy and France; now he has moved to London. Pat Metheny and
John McLaughlin are clear influences on his brand of contemporary fusion,
but since his move, the guitarist has broadened a brief that was already
expanding. Orient is the product of three combined forces: the culture of
Meier's Turkish wife, plus some musical experiments with London-based
world-jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon and middle-eastern drummer Asaf Sirkis.
The result is like a Pat Metheny album with a strong eastern-European and
middle-eastern spin. It might seem that by combining such well-travelled
world-music elements, Meier is asking for trouble. But his originality as a
writer, a player and a team leader dispatches any doubts. Give or take a few
soft-fusion or movie-music longueurs, and some overdependence on Metheny's
arsenal of guitar sound effects, Orient is a seductive balance of strong
themes, inventive improvising and dynamic variety, with Atzmon often playing
exquisitely on saxes and on both conventional and Turkish clarinets.
The opener, Adiguzel, moves between Turkish dance music and jazz grooving;
Sirkis' percussion is typically vivid and vigorous. Meier is elegant in tone
and bubbling with ideas on the Methenyish Libra, and Atzmon plays a
wonderful clarinet break of eerie whispers, sly insinuations and gripping
tonal contrasts on Last Rose before Meier follows with a zither-like sound.
Alone is Eastern fusion with subtle guitar electronics, and saxophonists
Dave O'Higgins and Rob Lavers contrast a postbop-sax intensity with Atzmon's
patient storytelling. Definitely promising.
listen to adiguzel from "orient"
buy "Orient" !!
Anna
Nicolas Meier, Orient
John Fordham
Friday November 11, 2005
The Guardian
Naim CD091
Nicolas Meier is a Swiss guitarist with a bright reputation in his homeland,
and also in Italy and France; now he has moved to London. Pat Metheny and
John McLaughlin are clear influences on his brand of contemporary fusion,
but since his move, the guitarist has broadened a brief that was already
expanding. Orient is the product of three combined forces: the culture of
Meier's Turkish wife, plus some musical experiments with London-based
world-jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon and middle-eastern drummer Asaf Sirkis.
The result is like a Pat Metheny album with a strong eastern-European and
middle-eastern spin. It might seem that by combining such well-travelled
world-music elements, Meier is asking for trouble. But his originality as a
writer, a player and a team leader dispatches any doubts. Give or take a few
soft-fusion or movie-music longueurs, and some overdependence on Metheny's
arsenal of guitar sound effects, Orient is a seductive balance of strong
themes, inventive improvising and dynamic variety, with Atzmon often playing
exquisitely on saxes and on both conventional and Turkish clarinets.
The opener, Adiguzel, moves between Turkish dance music and jazz grooving;
Sirkis' percussion is typically vivid and vigorous. Meier is elegant in tone
and bubbling with ideas on the Methenyish Libra, and Atzmon plays a
wonderful clarinet break of eerie whispers, sly insinuations and gripping
tonal contrasts on Last Rose before Meier follows with a zither-like sound.
Alone is Eastern fusion with subtle guitar electronics, and saxophonists
Dave O'Higgins and Rob Lavers contrast a postbop-sax intensity with Atzmon's
patient storytelling. Definitely promising.
listen to adiguzel from "orient"
buy "Orient" !!
Anna