ten astounding Guitar Virtuosos
With the Ibanez AZ range ready to be received by young legends in the making, Jason Sidwell lists 10 talented players you should be listening to right now
Plini Plini Roessler-Holgate is a 26-year-old Australian guitarist who creates instrumental music that leans heavily towards prog metal. Favouring uniquely shaped Strandberg guitars with Fractal and Atomic devices for his clean and heavily distorted guitar tones, he can be both emotive with singing sustained notes and highly virtuosic with blazingly precise syncopated phrasing. To create colour in his music, he favours odd time signatures and lots of space (he knows how effective reverb and silence can be!) to contrast with pounding drum beats and symphonic-like lead lines. With a second album due (his first was Handmade Cities) and an ever-growing fanbase, he’s definitely one to watch. www.plini.co Must hear: Ko Ki Mateus asato The 24-year-old LA-based Brazilian guitarist is part of the developing neo-soul movement that favours clean guitar tones and sophisticated chord vocabulary, which is as much inspired by jazzers such as pianist Bill Evans or guitarist Joe Pass as by soul icons like Stevie Wonder. Championed by John Mayer and session-guitar legend Tim Pierce, Mateus’ fame has been cultivated from his videos on social media that have impressed many. A Suhr artist, his Strat/Tele flavouring provides plenty of great single-coil tones as he glides and blazes with a largely fingerpicking style. His broad vocabulary makes him a hot prospect – he’s Tori Kelly’s guitarist at present but he could easily enhance the music of soul singer D’Angelo or Steely Dan. mateusasato.com Must hear: Don’t Dream It’s Over lari Basilio Like Mateus, Lari is also an LA-based Brazilian guitarist with a rhythmic fingerpicking/chord based style as well as being an impressive pick-wielding rock soloist. The 30-year-old released The Sound
Of My Room in 2015, an all-instrumental album that showed her impressive chops and broad compositional skills. There’s plenty of footage on social media of her playing various guitars (often Suhr). A particular skill of Basilio’s is her slippery soul/blues phrasing that, when using fingerpicking, involves melodic string jumps that many other guitarists don’t or can’t do. For many of the new virtuoso guitarists arising via social media, chops, taste and harmony savvy are all part of the required terrain and Lari excels at them all. laribasilio.com Must hear: Funky Yeah! nick Johnston Schecter-endorsee Nick Johnson, born in 1987, is a big fan of single coils – he has three in his signature S-type, not even opting for the humbucker found in the bridge position of many Super S-types. The pay-off is obvious – the Canadian prog-rocker favours a moderately driven amp tone (Mesa/ Boogie these days) that positions him in the SRV/ John Mayer camp where playing articulations are super-responsive to light fretting hand slurs or heavy picking. Nick has played with numerous musicians including Paul Gilbert, Guthrie Govan and Animals As Leaders, which has helped grow his fanbase. As one of the bluesiest guitarists in this list, Nick can be as energetic as, say, Phillip Sayce but with plenty of modern rock licks involving extensive legato slurring and sweep picked and tapped phrases. It’s a heady mix and performed with seemingly little effort. As for his actual music (he’s released four albums, the last of which was 2016’s Remarkably Human), he’s pleasingly unique with melody-based compositions that equal his chops. nickjohnstonmusic.com Must hear: Poison Touch Daniele GottarDo The Italian shredder Daniele Gottardo, born 1983, is Steve Vai’s favourite modern guitarist. When you see or hear Daniele, it’s easy to see why, as he’s highly virtuosic with several unique aspects to his Fender (scalloped) Super Strat wielding style. The first impression is how well developed his tapping skills are – very precise and varied with all four picking-hand fingers strong on the fretboard. The second impression is his soloing isn’t drenched in typical blues rock tropes, but rather modern