Digital modeling pros Neural DSP love a creative publicity stunt, and they’re no strangers to pairing hotshot shredders together, locking them in a room, and seeing if they can write a song in 24 hours.
We’ve already seen Plini working with ex-Megadeth man Kiko Loureiro and Mateus Asato, and producing magic, but seeing him team up with Animals As Leaders’ madcap genius Tosin Abasi feels like a dream collaboration.
In a surprise to no one, Plini opts for his signature “ridiculous space-age looking” Strandberg, and Abasi his self-made Abasi Concepts Larada, a guitar that Justus West snuck onto Beyoncé's new album.
Straight off the bat, Abasi stumbles upon a selective picking idea that leads Plini to point at him, a lightbulb pinging in his mind, to say, “Does that exist?! Okay, good.”
As they develop the idea, Plini laughs, “This is a part you’ll play, isn’t it?” The Aussie experimented with the technique on his latest EP, Mirage – which fittingly, features a guest solo from Abasi – but he’s regularly professed to being an amateur with it, especially compared to the man who coined it.
Where he excels, however, is with his emotion-draped chord progressions. In fact, he’s the one in charge of giving the song its core progression, and it’s as dreamy as they come. It's fascinating seeing the pair dissect the progression, trading chords for different feels with, at one point, Abasi taking on an almost directorial role.
The pair also show a keen ear for dynamic detail, with Abasi swapping from alternate picking to pure down picking à la James Hetfield for a more “metal” and attack-y approach.
“I rarely do straight down strokes,” Abasi confessed. “I haven't played Metallica in a while.”
As with any strong songwriting partnership, there are also disagreements. While penning the second section – an ascending chordal run that finds Abasi fingerpicking and Plini on lead – Abasi pushes for “a consonant in resolution” before any curveballs are thrown. Plini counters with, “You think, not just straight curveballs?” – a smile across his face the whole time.
Plini’s talents are properly tested when Abasi switches to a thumping part on his eight-string, leaving space for Plini to dive into a selective picking concept.
“Fucking hell,” he exclaims after fumbling his line. “Why do you write things like this?”
The idea is to syncopate the thump with the selective picking, but in a quest to make the Aussie’s part more personable to him, he’s put out of his misery.
“You were about to do a single note thing,” Abasi ponders as Plini battles with the part. “I wonder if it's a better use of Plini to do that,” he says, “and have the loop do a distorted version of the arpeggio,” which is then dialed in on the Archetype: Abasi plugin.
It goes to show that even the world’s best players have humanizing moments – although it seems Abasi comes away from their day’s writing pretty unscathed.
Elsewhere, there are crunchy, octaver-infused chord progressions “that sit right on the balance of an obvious and not obvious,” with Plini having stolen the octaver pedal for Gojira's signature plugin for his reprised edition, Plini X.
Abasi dishes out a key lesson that “sometimes, what a part needs is the most obvious thing,” leading Plini to quip, “Have you heard your music?” And there's also a charming moment as they nail down a harmonized lead line that has Plini musing, “Is this what it's like to be in band?”
The video offers a candid insight into how the two generational talents approach their respective instruments and songwriting processes. And, considering their tight-knit friendship and status as two of the most innovative guitarists born this side of Eddie Van Halen, it seems incredible that this represents one of their only collaborations together.
In other Tosin Abasi news, the trailblazing guitarist and entrepreneur recently released his first signature compressor pedal, the Micro-Aggressor.
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