Virtually famous: E^ST

Joining CHVRCHES and PVRIS in the sub-genre of artists with a boring name made more googleable by unorthodox spelling, E^ST is actually Australian teenager Melisa Bester.

She released two EPs in 2015 as a 17-year-old, at the same time making some YouTube impact with an emotional mashup of The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony and Massive Attack’s Teardrop – two songs from around the time of her birth, now on over a million views.

It’s now, though, that she could make an even bigger impact. Her new single, Life Goes On, has reached two million Spotify plays in just over a month, and deservedly so. In fact, I may be responsible for a few hundred thousand of those.

It’s a fantastic example of sad pop, simultaneously tearful and euphoric, sitting somewhere between upbeat London Grammar and downbeat Robyn.

Bester has a soft, soulful voice ideally suited to the leisurely piano line that leads the song. It’s not easy to predict hit singles in the streaming era, but it’s hard to imagine anybody hearing it without loving it, provided they can type her stage name correctly into the search bar in the first place.

If it helps, the ^ symbol is above the 6.