ick Borho is one of those guys you can imagine locked away in his bedroom for hours - no, days - on end, picking away at his guitar with the windows open and a breeze plunging in. His is a virtuosic style of picking, plucking, slapping, beating, tapping, and generally tugging at his acoustic guitar, thoughtfully pulling out every damn sound the thing's capable of making.
With the possible exceptions of the California Guitar Trio and Kaki King, instrumental guitar music is not particularly known to the mainstream. That's probably better: Let's keep treasures like these for ourselves.
Borho's Signs Music Has Changed Your Life is intimate, melodic, round and meticulously crafted. Though much of the guitar work is composed of major chords that sound quite pretty together, Borho also has a nice touch with dissonance. "Wings of Locust" (which features a panning track of the migratory katydid's famous sound in the background) is an exercise in darkness, a foreboding piece (perfect for the title's subject matter) that wouldn't sound out of place being performed by a symphony orchestra.
Borho's a smart enough guitar player to know when enough is enough, though, and doesn't let his experiments drag. He keeps the mood light with pieces like "Dreams," the musical equivalent of a jog in the park. And the opener "Walking Blues" couldn't be more aptly named: the song just strolls.
ick Borho is one of those guys you can imagine locked away in his bedroom for hours - no, days - on end, picking away at his guitar with the windows open and a breeze plunging in. His is a virtuosic style of picking, plucking, slapping, beating, tapping, and generally tugging at his acoustic guitar, thoughtfully pulling out every damn sound the thing's capable of making.
