The first thing you notice is the voice: smoke-cured, rough-edged, yet surprisingly tender. This is the rasp of late-night conversations and early-morning regrets, delivered with the insouciant charm of someone who has busked in Parisian metros and lived to tell the tale. Gutsy writes songs "for God and The Devil," as his biography claims, and you can hear both pulling at the edges of this track—the sacred and profane locked in an intimate waltz.
The arrangement leans into jazz-tinged folk with admirable economy. No overblown production, no unnecessary flourishes—just space for the voice to breathe and the words to land. When Dweech's vocals enter the frame, they provide not merely counterpoint but genuine conversation. Her clarity plays beautifully against his gruffness, like silk against burlap.
Lyrically, Gutsy traffics in the specific and the sensual: "Comme un azur dans l'âme / Comme un frisson sur l'océan." These are images that trust your imagination, painting "vivid pictures of people you've never met, places you've never been and love affairs you're yet to have." The poetry carries that essential French chanson quality—finding drama in the mundane, humour lurking beneath tragedy.
The track occupies an intriguing middle ground between the literary folk of his THE RED project (which drew from American and Irish poetry) and the smoke-filled chanson tradition of his homeland. You can hear Nina Simone's jazz inflections, Brel's emotional fearlessness, Cohen's spare profundity—but filtered through decades of Gutsy's own wandering. This is a man who has played with Grammy winners and Celtic bands, who learned his craft by facing indifferent commuters with nothing but an accordion and nerve.
If the song has a limitation, it's perhaps its own gracefulness. The rough edges have been smoothed just enough that you occasionally long for more of that subway grit, more of the Devil alongside the God. But as an introduction to Gutsy's francophone incarnation, it works precisely because it doesn't overreach. The joie de vivre is present, but tempered with melancholy—a very French combination.
The forthcoming album for 2026 promises to explore this territory more fully. Based on this evidence, Gutsy has found his voice by returning to his first language, bringing with him all the miles and music accumulated along the way. The result sounds like a beautiful drink that, when sipped, gives butterflies to your stomach—even if your French is rusty.
*"Comme un Azur dans l'Ame" is out now via The Animal Farm (London)*