PliniAustralia’s prog metal guitar prodigy, Plini (the musical mononym of Plini Roessler-Holgate) is set to tour his latest album, An Unnameable Desire, across Australia in August in what will be his biggest production to date.
An Unnameable Desire is another instrumental masterclass from Plini that takes the listener on an otherworldly odyssey, all without using a single word.
The album is already proving to be a fan favourite. His four-piece band debuted songs live on the first leg of his world tour in Europe and Plini muses that it’s “probably the best that I’ve ever felt new material has done with an audience.”
Despite being recognised with multiple accolades and the guitar god himself, Steve Vai singing his praises, Plini has still kept his feet on the ground. He’s completely down to earth when The Music speaks with him, just before he flies to Singapore to begin the Asian dates of the tour.
“I’ve just been chilling and doing my laundry, which is not an exclusive scoop at all,” he jokes.
Ahead of this headline tour and debuting a new era in Australia, Plini has considered the production and presentation of the band and how different types of audience members will experience the show across the various venues.
“Hopefully you'll be at the centre of a circle pit with your shirt off,” he laughs.
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“I think with my music and with the way that I perform, which is to stand relatively still for an hour and a half. I think it's nice to present it with interesting lighting and an interesting stage setup and also in a way that if you're not standing in the centre of a circle pit with your shirt off, you can see and hear the music and enjoy it.
“Some of these venues we haven't played before and they're all typically more like, you could be up the front and it'll sound good or you could be up the back, chilling a little more, and it'll sound good or maybe there’s a balcony,” he adds. “So however you want to enjoy it, there's somewhere to do as opposed to a small club, which is really fun but like my parents wouldn't come to.”
Joining Plini on these tours is a mammoth handpicked line-up featuring Delta Sleep, Cenobia and Nightdive. If you get there from the start you might see Plini – who’s a fan of all three bands – next to you in the circle pit waving his own t-shirt in the air.
“I'm kind of selfish where I just pick bands that I want to watch and then hopefully everyone else does too,” he confesses. “I also like to try and make it a little bit eclectic, you should hopefully enjoy everyone but it's not necessarily what you would guess [would be] on the bill.
“Nightdive, a new band, but all the members are like friends of my band and just really sick. They’ve played a few shows, and I've seen them, and they're awesome. So if you arrive at the venue on time, you will see a great band that you probably haven't heard of before, which I think is awesome.
“Cenobia are also a relatively new artist and she's I think playing her first show next week in Sydney. It’s like a very mysterious theatrical sort of thing which I think – also like sick music, sick band – is quite a contrast to me who is not serious or theatrical really.
“And then Delta Sleep, I'm just a huge fan of them,” he continues. “They toured here a couple of years ago, and it was fucking sick, I’ve seen them in the UK before. Amazing band, really fun like high energy people playing instruments. Just like a real rock band sort of thing.”
An Unnameable Desire is introduced through a trilogy of music videos for the title track and the two lead singles After Everything and Manala.
Instead of having a video of him sitting in a room and playing guitar, Plini put his trust in Director Declan Blackall and Director of Photography Jamie McVicker to create a visual world for the album.
The result is three beautifully shot cinematic videos that follow the protagonist on an adventure across the most serene Australian landscapes; the videos could be mistaken for a Tourism Australia advert.
“They came up with this idea to do a trilogy where there's one narrative where, even though the songs aren't necessarily related, they do have some narrative through them,” he explains.
I guess this just vibe of like a kind of quirky Australiana thing like a low budget, ‘90s ABC supernatural, that just emerged.
“I think it turned out really cool, because the first thing that would come to mind for me would be like if I could do a million-dollar animated thing that looks like it has super special effects everywhere. That seems like the most obvious thing for the music I make. So I think it was really cool to end up with this thing that's kind of more like sideways from that.”
It takes an exceptional mind to be able to create instrumental music that makes such an impact. Plini admits his is “all over the place” during this instinctual process. Songs that he may have a clear idea of in his mind can turn into something completely different by the time they’re finished.
“That's also kind of the fun, hopefully I'll keep making music until I'm old and my instinct will change,” he admits. “The way that I would work on an idea, just ends up different, because that's how I feel at the time.
“Next time I try and write music, maybe I'll think a pop structure is perfect and I'll try and make this like concise pop style music.”
When prompted about collaborating with vocalists in the future, Plini reveals that’s something he’s already thinking about for his next project.
“That's the next thing that I want to do, because I think I've made quite a bit of instrumental music – it's really fun and I kind of feel like I know what I'm doing,” he notes. “So now I need to find something [where] I don't know what I'm doing and try to do that.
“So much of the music that I love is with a vocalist and I've never written a song before so I don't even know like, how do I leave room for someone to sing over? That'll be basically the next thing that I want to start working on and figure it out.”
It wasn’t always Plini’s intention to form this solo instrumental project. At about ten years old, Plini followed the familiar beginner path and opened GarageBand on his computer.
“At that time, I was trying to emulate like blink-182, so making obscene pop punk songs,” he remembers. “But as I grew out of that and into nerdy guitar stuff, I wasn't close with a singer and I didn't like my recorded voice at all. So I just did what I could make sound good, in a way that I enjoyed, which was instrumental guitar-based.”
Plini is living every young guitarist's dream by having his own signature model, a Strandberg Boden. Despite this rock star achievement, Plini’s feet – once again – remain firmly on the ground.
“I'm metaphorically pinching myself a little bit, all day every day,“ he admits. “[I’ve] ended up with like a general happiness because I'm like ‘this is so cool. I'm gonna play music’ or like ‘I have a signature guitar’.
“So it's like a lot of incredibly cool things. So I'm just like…” Plini childishly pulls the corners of his mouth up, smiling from ear to ear. As are we all.
Tickets to Plini’s forthcoming Australian tour are on sale now.
Plini – An Unnameable Desire: Australia & New Zealand Headline Tour 2026
w/Delta Sleep (from UK), Cenobia (Bris/Syd/Melb) and nightdive (AU shows only)
Thursday, August 6th – Princess Theatre, Brisbane, QLD
Friday, August 7th – Liberty Hall, Sydney, NSW
Saturday, August 8th – Northcote Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
Sunday, August 9th – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide, SA
Tuesday, August 11th – Magnet House, Perth, WA
Friday, August 14th – Double Whammy, Auckland, NZ
Saturday, August 15th – San Fran, Wellington, NZ
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
