Pete Oxley and Nicolas Meier have already stretched the confines of the jazz-guitar duet by their broad world-musical interests and exotic range of instruments – as they memorably revealed on last year’s Chasing Tales album. Half of this typically melodious two-album set revisits that duo format, with bass and drums added on the second disc. The pair’s favourite sources – Pat Methenyesque songs, Hot Club swing, Latin cool, Turkish music – are prominent again, with Indian influences also present in the sitar-like swerves of fretless instruments, alongside synth guitars mimicking brass, and rugged rockers with mediterranean melodies that spawn clamorous improv on Meier’s oud-like glissentar guitar. One of the few unequivocally jazzy tracks, the hip and slinky Purple Panther, lets Oxley and Meier play fewer notes and let the swing groove do the work, opening spaces that this genially busy set could have used a shade more of. But these two resourceful maestros reach out to a wide audience – they’ll be doing just that on a 25-date UK tour from January.
