Ichika Nito and Marcin – two of today’s standout virtuosos – have joined forces for a quickfire collaborative single, Fall.
The electric guitar-meets-acoustic guitar track is only 65 seconds long, but that’s all the time the two Ibanez signature artists need to showcase their internet-breaking chops and technical prowess.
Having hailed from a social media scene that forces guitarists to pack in a wealth of flashy fretboard acrobatics in a short space of time, filling a whole minute is a walk in the park for the two players, whose styles coalesce very effectively indeed.
With each wielding their respective signature guitars, Fall sees Ichika take the lead via the fretboard of his Ibanez ICH10 Quest headless model before Marcin – and his recently unveiled MRC10 signature model – gets in on the action by way of some body drumming, harmonic chimes and two-hand tapping runs.
What then emerges is 43 seconds of technically intense six-string interplay, with Marcin’s silky arpeggios and neat percussive support weaving throughout Ichika’s million-miles-an-hour fretboard frolics.
It’s not the first time the two have teamed up to pit their respective electric and acoustic skills against one another. Back in April, the pair traded exhilarating six-string blows in an epic electric vs acoustic guitar duel.
Since making a name for themselves on social media, the two up-and-coming guitar titans have worked their way up to help spearhead an emerging movement of young guitarists who are constantly pushing the boundaries of what has previously been explored on a fretboard.
It’s a movement in which they’re joined by some of their fellow Ibanez artists, including the likes of Tim Henson – who has a handful of his own Ibanez signature guitars – and Manuel Gardner Fernandes: an Ibanez endorsee who has been known to favor an AZ model.
Indeed, the careers of all the above are closely linked. Only last week, Henson gave Marcin his seal of approval after the former tested out the Polyphia man’s new TOD10 nylon-string signature.
Marcin and Fernandes have also linked up before, most notably as part of Jared Dines’ mammoth shred collab, which dropped in January this year.
As for Ichika, the Japanese virtuoso recently dropped his latest EP, Window, which was preceded by Away – a virtuosic single that Ichika crafted from the fretboard of a seven-string Ibanez QX527PB.
