Victor Martinez & The Martinez Brothers: Timba Clan.

Victor Martinez & The Martinez Brothers play The Healer on Friday and the Hard Rock Café, Surfers Paradise on Friday, the Railway Hotel, Byron Bay on Saturday and the Yamba Hotel on Sunday.

The last two visits Victor Martinez & The Martinez Brother made to Brisbane saw them land two very different gigs. They found themselves supporting Concrete Blonde in the dark and smoky Arena the first time around, and played the Queensland Performing Arts Centre with jazz chanteuse Diana Krall the second. There are not a lot of acts around that could come close to fitting into both venues, let alone put on a show of such passion and intensity as to leave crowds speechless on both occasions.

Now permanently based in Sydney, the three part guitar instrumentals put together by the Chilean musicians are simply breathtaking. Percussive, chaotic and driving one second, restrained, melodious and beautiful the next. As well as the aforementioned shows, they’ve also shared stages with Machine Gun Fellatio, ex Police guitarist Andy Summers, Latin funk stars Ozomatli, and Brisbane locals george. This tour finds them releasing their debut disc New Timba. If you haven’t seen them yet, make amends now.

“It’s all my father’s fault,” laughs Andro of the family’s involvement in music. “He’s been a musician for a many many many years. Since he was very young. It comes from that. The guitar was always at home, and we just picked it up. At the beginning he started teaching us, and we kind of went from there. We were never pushed into it. Nothing like that. It was very casual. I guess our interest was always there.”

“For the last five years we’ve been performing as a trio. Before that it was a very casual sort of thing for the three of us. Me and Dauno were always in bands, doing that kind of stuff. We performed together many times before, but nothing like this, you know.”

How old were you when you started playing?

“I was about eight years old when I started playing, so that’s about twenty years. Jesus, I’ve never thought about it like that before… Dauno started younger than me. He was four or five playing funk tunes on the guitar. He’s a very talented boy.”

How do you tailor your sets to fit the different audiences you play for?

“It’s just a case of expect the unexpected for us, you know. Sometimes we think something won’t go down very well and it does, it could be one of our best gigs, you know? Sometimes we think it will be a piece of cake and it can be a tough crowd. It’s just one of those things that you can never plan. Having said all that, one of the good things about what we do is that because it’s acoustic guitars and we use distortion, and from there it becomes jazzy, it keeps a lot of angles open. I think that’s why we can go on and do a jazz gig and then go on to play with a rock band”

“The Diana Krall tour was much more conservative than what we do normally, you know. That gives you a sort of idea. If people can appreciate music, they can enjoy us.”

You did a Latin cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing with Concrete Blonde as part of their encore. When did you put that together?

“It wasn’t really done planned in advance. Johnette (Napolitano, Concrete Blonde vocalist) heard that we were doing the supports and wanted to do something together. When we met up on the first gig the conversation went further, and we just started doing it. It was great playing with them. It gives you a great buzz playing with someone like that.”

Naturally enough, it’s the bands headlining shows where they really get to stretch out with their material, rather than work within the confines of a limited set.

“We’re more at home with our own shows. It keeps us sharp. The interplay keeps us active and very awake with what we’re doing. We’re always playing together. It’s a really rewarding thing to be doing… spiritually. I didn’t want to use that work,” he laughs. “Now I sound like a hippy.”