artists
Meier, Nicolas
Artists Website : http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=76325234
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 Atzon often playing exquisitely on saxes and on both conventional and Turkish clarinets.
