If you're a fan of both pre-war Martins and the radiused body designs of luthiers like Sobell, Laurent Brondel's guitars will be right up your alley. He achieves incredible tonal power with his instruments, and lets the tone speak for itself with understated aesthetics. This unusual 2009 B-2c is a gorgeous concert-sized guitar—short scale with 12 frets to the body, it delivers up a buttery playing feel that fingerstylists will love. Using 5' arched plates, it's lightly built yet hugely expressive. The combination of cocobolo with Carpathian spruce produces a voice that balances a direct, strong fundamental with a rich overtone profile, with excellent articulation that serves complex arrangements and drop tunings beautifully.

It's also one of the few acoustics he has built with a fully adjustable neck, done in the Howe-Orme / Rick Turner tradition (with Rick’s encouragement at the time). At 14-years-old, it's in excellent condition, coming to us from Laurent himself. He notes three hairline back cracks that were repaired well by another tech or luthier, and prior to shipping to us, he went over it and did a light fret dress and polish.