In a musical landscape where the spacey, funked out synth sounds of the 80s are feeling a major comeback, artists like Pleco are thriving.
Today marks the day that the musical project of Brisbane synth wizard Edward L’Estrange puts a second song to his name. Black Fly is nostalgic, analogue melancholia at it’s best, and a tasty evolution from his debut single I Can Tell.
Pensive, brooding and ghostly, Black Fly from Pleco is a veritable synth feast drenched in echoing desolation.
Black Fly opens with the intimate, first contact feeling of a sci-fi film’s title track. It evokes the essence of exploration and that foreboding loneliness which fits so well with the empty atmosphere of space.
The lyrics reflect these sensibilities, L’Estrange well and truly playing the spaceman:
“You’re looking down beneath you. The earth is there to meet you. She’s cold…”
The electronic beat which quickly cuts into the mix elevates Black Fly to something a little more dance-able, but this is no bass boomer. The strength of Pleco’s sophomore single is in it’s ambience, a constant iteration of cosmic isolation marked by only an undercurrent of juicier beats.
L’Estrange’s vocals capture this sentiment wholeheartedly, a baritone moulded by heavy delay and poignant lyricism.
First single I Can Tell saw a more hopeful tone and musicality, and it’s tough to decipher which suits Pleco’s emergent sound better. For now, he’s hitting a sweet spot between the worlds of synth jammers and more classic, storytelling songwriters, and we’re not complaining.
If you’re into what Pleco has captured after two singles, then you have plenty of reason to keep an ear out. Edward L’Estrange is on the eve of a move to Canada with his band These Guy, but the output won’t be slowing down as a result.
That being said, there’s a charm to the short-lived act who captures something beautiful before moving on, and what L’Estrange has formed with Pleco is all that and much more.
