It ain't just about the guitar. Its about the story. This was Jean-Paul Bourelly's first solo acoustic guitar: CD News from a Darked Out Room. 
It was the 14th release and came out in 2005, recorded in Vienna Austria with production work by Christoph Burgstaller.

His stories speak in the language of acoustic blues, instrumental tone poems and Haitian folklore sent through a vortex of hand slaps, thumping wood, leg rattling bells and pulsing blue notes. 
The narrative quality of the songs are chill and more reflective than anything Bourelly has come out with to date. 

Their collective range goes from prayer-like instrumentals to troubadour vocalizing, highlighted by a driving guitar percussive style Bourelly introduces for the first time he calls "Goon Gah Technique". 
On pieces like "Fight for you" and Cross cut saw" Bourelly gives compelling answers to questions of where modern acoustic blues may be heading. 

Bourelly's voice is husky and warm and his harp like strummings and guitar body beats stir up a hypnotic aura around the inner sanctum of the recording studio.

Over those foundations, Bourelly singing to an array of contemporary life experiences from the loss of a beloved, the humorous irony of relationships to a call of "unity" in facing globalization. 

With border-crossing zeal always in effect, the songs blend blue's affinity for African tradition to folk songs that rotate gently into instrumental psalms. Bourelly's sure hands execute with the relaxed steadiness of a true master and his vulnerable quest in searching out the best melodic moments between verses renders the guitar to pause as if in intimate conversation. 

Over all Bourelly's deft sense of drama and space move this CD. He takes you through his universe of sensibilities, deep and gentle, fiery and warm, yet always with the intuitive glare of a musical adventurer and the awareness to deliver us out of the depths of his kingdom more open than we went in. 


For lovers of acoustic guitar this News from a Darked Out Room will deliver your senses to the spirit world and make you want to go there again. For collectors, this is a rare offering that marks a new chapter in the career of one of the worlds most creative and consistently compelling guitarists.

Released in 2005, recorded at Burgies Place, Vienna, Austria with production work by Christoph Burgstaller.



Walli Sherrad - disc hunter