js Nicolas Meier’s new album may be titled “Peaceful”, but don’t expect music that is timid or dull, instead, the music on here is exciting, energetic and very rhythmic. More than likely the term peaceful alludes to the positive vibes and peace encouraging all inclusive international flavor of Meier’s latest opus. For this one Nicolas has assembled his all acoustic World Group Quartet, consisting of himself on fretted and fretless guitars, Kevin Glasgow on bass, Richard Jones on violin and Demi Garcia on percussion. Together they take on musical styles from all over the globe including Gypsy, Samba, Middle Eastern, Spanish, Turkish and more. Meier takes most of the solos, and much like fellow guitarist George Benson, Nicolas makes his fleet scale runs sound easy, as if he is never breaking a sweat as he pulls of runs that would fatigue most. Jones takes a few solos too, but often backs up Nicolas with harmonies and background pedal points.

“Peaceful” opens with, “Besiktas”, a very continental flavored waltz with a bit of gypsy to it before they head into the high energy “Manzanita Samba”. The CD title track is a floating middle-eastern flavored ambient track that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Bill Laswell album. Many of the following tracks continue the middle eastern theme, often with very pronounced percussion driven grooves. “Water Lillies” takes us to Spain complete with the requisite hand clapping rhythmic backing. The album closes with “Soho Square’, a bluesy number with a loping rhythm somewhere in between gospel and western swing. Quite simply, “Peaceful” is as pleasant as the title implies, but never placid.