Experimental Sydney-based duo Plastic Face have released their captivating new single ‘Back2Tokyo’.
This enigmatic duo (Pete Stals and Will Coleman) have also released a spooky and intriguing Lynchian video to accompany ‘Back2Tokyo’, written and directed by Sean Donovan.
Like their previous single ‘HiiViSiON’, ‘Back2Tokyo’ makes an immediate impact – but this time the atmosphere is provocative, moody; the kind of track you might hear at 4AM on the dancefloor of a European nightclub. Entirely self-written, produced and mixed by the duo, the topline for ‘Back2Tokyo‘ is undeniably captivating, pushing the boundaries of what pop music can sound like.
We had a chat with Plastic Face’s Pete Stals about the ‘Back2Tokyo’ single and their upcoming debut album.
What is the meaning behind ‘Back2Tokyo’?
Like all of our tracks, it’s 100% up to the listener’s interpretation, we really like the idea that songs can kind of have countless meanings to people, in the way that it can transport them and make them feel. It’s inspired by making the same kind of errors or mistakes, going back to Tokyo doesn’t necessarily mean buying the cheapest one-way ticket to Tokyo from Sydney or going and hanging out in Tokyo. It’s used to communicate a metaphor, a state of mind. It’s more similar to going back to an old, toxic relationship or managing addictions, putting up with some horrendous job, that kind of thing.
The director of the video for Back2Tokyo, Sean Clancy Donovan, is a good friend of ours. We worked on our first video with him too, HiiViSiON. He’s got a very unique, David Lynch-esque kind of vibe. He’s recently released a short film called Headless Chooks which is really cool. We love working together and basically just let him just roll with his imagination. He comes up with very unique concepts which can be interpreted metaphorically in a number of ways. Kind of like a witch casting spells on people, it’s up to the viewer to decide what it all means.
You wrote, mixed and produced the track ‘Back2Tokyo’ yourselves. What did your creative process look like?
We’ve been writing together for, gosh, 15 years now. Since we were little babies sort of thing. We’ve played in lots of different bands, throughout different genres. A bunch of different shows too, over in the U.K, throughout Europe in our different bands. We basically send each other ideas online. At the moment, Will lives in Sydney and I’m on the Sunshine Coast. Just yesterday, we were coming up with some new ideas for our second record which is coming out next year. We’ve been playing with ideas, little snippets of online media which we share with each other.
We get inspiration from books we read, plays we like, movies, podcasts, conspiracy theories. Anything and everything. Yesterday Will sent me a random conspiracy clip and I was thinking, yes we should use this – haha. We definitely have a weird, unique writing process.
What are your biggest influences or inspirations?
Everything, it’s not just music. We don’t pigeonhole ourselves into listening to one genre of music, we have a fairly broad, eclectic taste. I think the best thing to say is that we just listen to anything and everything, we rewatch a lot of the same old films. I think the tone also comes out in what Sean does with the videos. The music exists as its own thing, we’re not trying to be like anyone or anything else.
What genre do you feel that Plastic Face fits into?
Melodic pop, it’s also smooth and paddy. Maybe like, alt-pop music. We always try to create sounds which are brand new, with the genre I think that sort of shows. It’s less like “Plastic Face sounds like this, or that”. We want listeners to think that we sound purely Plastic Face. The vibe we kind of go with is that it’s an entity unto itself.
Can you give us a little band-backstory?
We’ve both been in and out of bands for the past 15 years or so in Sydney and we would’ve met about 15 years ago. We’ve played so many different genres of music here in Australia and the U.K, we lived there for a couple of years. Plastic Face is the project that we’ve always been wanting to work on. Over Covid we’ve had the time to get the record together, and form ideas with Sean about the clips. Over the last few years we’ve actually had the time to get the record together, which has been great.
What’s next for Plastic Face?
Well, we’ve just put out our second single ‘Back2Tokyo’ and our third single is coming out in June/July so that’ll be released with another video. We’ll be playing some live shows around Sydney too in support of the record release so keep an eye out for Plastic Face shows mid year. We’re super psyched to get the album out, we can’t wait to start touring, the shows are going to be pretty insane so that’s something to look forward to.
Check out the video for ‘Back2Tokyo’ below:
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