Nick Fletcher - Quadrivium.

Nick Fletcher
Quadrivium
(Rough Draft Audio)
By Paul Davies
            Nick Fletcher has been on a remarkable solo run and his latest album, Quadrivium, lengthens his sonic stride by furthering the already deep footprints left by 22’s The Cloud Of Unknowing and ‘21’s Cycles Of Behaviour. With guitar playing as twisty as a packet of fusilli pasta, Nick Fletcher’s mastery of the complexities of the guitar is fully represented, once again, on this excellent release adding to his ever growing and highly respected solo canon. Once more, imaginative ideas take flight and glide out from his guitar neck initially on the spectral intro to opening track, A Wave On The Ocean Of Eternity, that scales creamy heights of beautiful guitar work.

            Accompanied by the outstanding former Jeff Beck drummer, Anika Nilles, who creates a strong and supple backbone fusion of commanding percussion, Overture To The Cosmos rampages with a melodious progressive fusion of interplay. It’s underpinned by Tim Harries’ excellent bass work and producer/musician extraordinaire Caroline Bonnett on keyboards and synths. Track three, Riding The Event, welcomes another progressive maestro as Dave Bainbridge delivers deft keyboard flourishes to accentuate the captivating free form feel of this intricate passage of music. Bainbridge does as much and more on the intriguing The Fifth Parallel and on Aphelion’s stylish Holdsworthian design of sound.
            Fletcher's arrow true guitar technique and musical prose is, at the best of times, as light as air. Notes float mellifluously like celestial clouds across the soundstage. Also, there are smooth as silk textures seared by sharp and expert runs of instrumental notation as though dusted with icing sugar - Ziggurat Of Dreams pt. 1 & 2, The Helix and more - that will alert connoisseurs of Holdsworth, Metheny, Hackett, Beck etc… that here is a rapidly developing major talent, with a deep backstory of music ripe for discovery, to keep an attentive ear out for. The eastern influence of guitar and tabla like percussion on To The Stars We Shall Return eliding into The Journey To Varanasi, replete with Mahavishnu inflections, broadens the overall palette of this deeply devised musical statement.
            The poignant solo guitar, enveloped in a cosmically charged misty soundscape, on Standing On The Edge Of Time, closes out a pitch perfect multifaceted album of rich compositional layers. It represents Nick Fletcher’s musical standing undergoing another rapid spurt of growth on this release.  If music is the food of love, then Quadrivium is most definitely a rib sticker. There’s plenty of scintillating musicianship and compositional twists and turns here to satisfyingly digest on many, many repeated visits.