A shared love of instrumental music and The Shadows has brought two of Australia’s popular guitarists together. Against a backdrop of a world pandemic that’s caused the cancellation of all live music and touring, the two guitarists; Sydney based guitarist Martin Cilia and Melbourne based guitarist Joe Matera, have joined forces in a new project, which has borne fruit in the form of two brand new instrumentals that both guitarists have co-written and recorded.
Martin Cilia: “I first got to know Joe when I was on tour with Mental As Anything. Occasionally when we played in Melbourne, Joe was the opening act. I had previously seen Joe’s name as author/journalist for many articles in music magazines. It turned out that Joe is a huge Shadows fan, as am I, and loves the rhythm guitar work of the great Bruce Welch. Joe contacted me to see what I was up to, as COVID restrictions were making touring impossible. We started to work on a song together over the internet between Victoria and New South Wales. The first song we collaborated on was ‘Sunday Island’. That came out well, so we decided to try a second song which became ‘St Kilda Bay’.
Joe Matera: “I’ve always loved Martin’s work with The Atlantics as well as his own solo instrumental material, and his guitar playing with Mental As Anything. So I sent Martin some demos of music I had put together and Martin really loved what he heard, so we fleshed out the ideas further into songs. We then recorded our parts in our own respective studios, adding our own shared influences. The songs echo our love of The Shadows, The Atlantics, The Ventures and all the classic guitar instrumental groups from the 1960s, infused with a high dose of melody and surf inspired, feel good grooves”.
Their debut offering of two uplifting guitar instrumental songs reminiscent of the 60s will be released on all digital platforms on September 1st, 2020.
Martin Cilia has released five albums with legendary Australian band The Atlantics as guitarist and songwriter, as well as, seven full length solo albums. He is also the songwriter for the instrumental songs ‘Flight of the Surf Guitar’, ‘Reef Break’, ‘In The Shadows’ & ‘Surfabilly’.
More info at www.martincilia.com
Joe Matera is a solo artist who has released five full length albums and three EPs to date via various European record labels. He has undertaken numerous European tours and is also guitarist with Swedish based hard rock band Rough Rockers.
More info at www.joematera.com
