Plini

Biography

Plini is the Australian guitarist who made instrumental progressive rock sound beautiful. Where a lot of modern prog chases weight and speed, his music is bright, melodic and full of light, built on jazz-flavored chords, odd-meter grooves and lead lines you can actually hum. He was born Plini Roessler-Holgate on July 25, 1992, in Sydney, and he works under his first name alone. He started out around 2011 releasing music as Halcyon, posting tracks online from a bedroom studio, and soon switched to his own name with the EPs Other Things and Sweet Nothings in 2013.

Plini built his whole career independently. He writes, plays, records and produces his music himself, and his early releases spread through the online prog and djent community at a time when bedroom producers were reshaping guitar music. The End of Everything EP followed in 2015, and in 2016 he released his debut album, Handmade Cities. It was a breakout. Steve Vai called him the future of exceptional guitar playing and described Handmade Cities as one of the finest, forward-thinking, melodic, rhythmically and harmonically deep instrumental guitar records he had ever heard. MusicRadar named Plini the best prog guitarist of 2017, and he was nominated for Live Guitarist of the Year at Australia's National Live Music Awards in 2018.

Here is the gem. In November 2020, Doja Cat performed "Say So" at the MTV Europe Music Awards, and guitar fans immediately noticed that the guitar solo in the performance was a note-for-note match for a passage from Plini's 2016 track "Every Piece Matters." The internet lit up, Plini responded with characteristic good humor, and Doja Cat apologized to him directly. The episode turned into a strange sort of compliment, proof that his melodies had traveled far beyond the prog scene.

He followed Handmade Cities with the Sunhead EP in 2018 and the album Impulse Voices in 2020, and he has headlined tours across Australia, Europe and North America, usually with a band of fellow Sydney players including drummer Chris Allison, guitarist Jake Howsam Lowe and bassist Simon Grove. He has guested on records by Sithu Aye, Skyharbor, David Maxim Micic, Intervals and many others, and he partnered with Strandberg on a signature headless guitar and with Neural DSP on the Archetype: Plini amp software, which put his tone in the hands of thousands of players. In 2026 he returned with the album An Unnameable Desire.

Legendary Performance

Impulse Voices Tour, Live "PAN" Recordings

2022 (video released December 1, 2022) · Factory Theatre, Sydney, and 170 Russell, Melbourne, Australia

When Impulse Voices came out in 2020, Plini could not tour it. The album arrived in the middle of the pandemic, and he admitted it felt strange to release a new record without being able to celebrate it on stage. The Impulse Voices tour in Australia, with his band of Chris Allison on drums, Jake Howsam Lowe on second guitar and Simon Grove on bass, became that long-delayed celebration, with headline shows at venues including 170 Russell in Melbourne and the Factory Theatre in Sydney.

Footage from those two rooms became the live video for "PAN," released on December 1, 2022, alongside the announcement of his headline tours of the United States, the UK and Europe. The video captures what makes Plini special live. The parts on the record are layered and intricate, but on stage the four players lock in so tightly that the odd-meter grooves feel effortless, and Plini's clean, singing lead tone cuts through without ever sounding harsh.

For many fans it was the proof that his music, written and produced alone in a bedroom studio, works just as well as a live band experience. The shows marked his return to the stage after the pandemic and kicked off a run of headline tours that took the Impulse Voices material around the world.

Gear

Strandberg Boden Plini Edition

Known for: his headless, multi-scale signature guitar

Plini plays a Strandberg Boden Plini Edition, a signature version of the Swedish company's headless, ergonomic guitar. The Boden's tiny body and lack of a headstock make it light and balanced, and its multi-scale, fanned-fret design gives the low strings extra tension and clarity while keeping the high strings slinky for bends. Those traits suit his style perfectly, since his music jumps between chunky low-register riffs and delicate, high, vocal melodies.

The ergonomic neck profile is built for long sessions of wide-stretch chords and fast legato, and the guitar's clarity helps his jazz-influenced voicings ring out even with gain. The Plini Edition has become one of Strandberg's most popular artist models among modern progressive players.

Neural DSP Archetype: Plini (and Quad Cortex)

Known for: his signature amp-modeling plugin

Like many players of his generation, Plini built his sound in the digital world. His tone is captured in Neural DSP's Archetype: Plini, an amp and effects plugin designed with him that includes clean, crunch and lead amp models voiced to his taste. An expanded version, Archetype: Plini X, was released on October 20, 2023, adding octave, fuzz, distortion, delay and modulation effects, and it was Neural DSP's first plugin made compatible with the Quad Cortex floor unit.

Using modeling rather than traditional tube amps lets him recreate his carefully produced studio tones exactly on stage, and it is a big reason the plugin has become a staple for bedroom producers who want that glassy, polished modern prog sound.

Archetype: Plini X effects (octave, fuzz, distortion, delay, modulation)

Much of Plini's magic comes from ambience and polish rather than heavy processing. He uses lush delays and reverbs to give his clean parts a shimmering, spacious quality, light compression to even out his legato runs, and subtle modulation for width. The Archetype: Plini X plugin bundles the key pieces of his chain (octave, fuzz, distortion, delay and modulation) so players can recreate his textures in one place.

Signature Technique

Melodic Legato, Jazz Voicings and Odd-Meter Grooves

Plini's playing starts with melody. Even his fastest runs are built around memorable phrases, and he often writes a lead line first, then builds the chords and rhythm underneath it. His legato technique, using hammer-ons and pull-offs to connect notes smoothly, gives his solos a liquid, vocal quality, and he uses tapping and wide intervallic jumps to create lines that sound more like a keyboard or a singer than a typical rock guitarist.

Harmonically he borrows from jazz and fusion. He loves extended chords (major sevenths, ninths, add nines and suspended voicings) and moves them through unexpected key changes, which is why his music sounds so bright and hopeful compared with the darker tone of a lot of progressive metal. Rhythmically he draws on the djent and prog scene, with odd time signatures, syncopated low-string riffs and polyrhythms, but he uses them for groove rather than aggression.

He is also a master of arrangement. His tracks are layered with interlocking guitar parts, clean arpeggios under distorted leads, and careful production, all of which he handles himself. Pieces like "Every Piece Matters," "Electric Sunrise" and "Handmade Cities" show how he can shift from delicate to soaring within a few bars.

His influence on modern instrumental guitar is huge. Along with players like Tosin Abasi and Tim Henson, he helped define the sound of 2010s progressive guitar, and his independent, internet-first career, plus his signature gear and plugin, showed a generation of bedroom players that they could build a global audience on their own terms.