Best known as one half of the formidable duo, Doghouse Roses, Paul Tasker is acknowledged by many to be an even more formidable guitar player, well versed in the type of skills displayed by the likes of Bert Jansch. This was in ample evidence on his solo debut, Cold Weather Music, released in 2016, and it is again, here on Tierra Quemada, released last week.

Like its predecessor, Tierra Quemada is an instrumental album with Tasker’s finger picking skills front and centre while a small coterie of friends (Laura Beth Salter – mandolin; Rachel Hair – harp; Una McGlone – bass; Richard Evan – viola; Robert Henderson – trumpet and Dejan Lapanja -drums) appear separately, adding their own particular gloss to a tune. With its Spanish title, which translates as Scorched Earth, one might be expecting to experience an Iberian influence as the album reveals itself but, aside from some splendid classical guitar moments, as on DMT and the title tune itself, this certainly isn’t a guitar equivalent of Miles Davis’ Sketches Of Spain. Instead, Tasker, much like a murmuration of starlings (incidentally, the title of one of the tunes), gracefully flits, swoops and soars amidst various styles, never fully settling on one. So, there are elements of folk, Appalachia, classic and even jazz evenly spun into the overall experience.

The album opens with the splendidly named, Womble The Sausage Dog, inspired apparently by a neighbour’s Dachshund who apparently hated hearing guitar but seemed to enjoy banjo. Laura Beth Salter’s subtle mandolin smoothly offsets Tasker’s fine banjo and slide guitar playing on a tune which recalls John McEuen of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. This American influence can be heard again on the delightful refrains of Roadtrippin’, another banjo outing with Tasker multitasking on all the instruments while Riding Out is a somewhat jaunty, even frisky little number which one can imagine might be set to scenes of cowboys riding the range in a Coen Brothers’ movie. Murmuration is a fleet fingered exposition of wide open spaces with Richard Evans’ viola adding to its horizons. Close your eyes and let your imagination run free here, it’s a soundtrack for your mind.

There’s less of Tasker’s folk influences here than on Cold Weather Music but Firefly, a beautiful meditation, delicately coloured in by Rachel Hair’s harp playing is reminiscent of Bert Jansch’s Rosemary Lane album. After The Rain, the most embellished tune here with voila and trumpet in the mix has a similar bucolic feel with the mournful muted trumpet adding that Iberian touch.

The album rides out with a sense of faded grandeur on the supremely evocative banjo lilt of Last Waltz, a glorious two minutes which summons up visions of all your favourite Westerns rolled into one. It’s kind of like Tasker’s equivalent to Ry Cooder’s emblematic music for Paris, Texas.

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