2022 - UK
Jazz Poetry, Spiritual Jazz, Chamber Jazz
Born in England, Alabaster DePlume started learning the saxophone in 2008. He was driven by the idea of uniting people around common principles. This purpose turned his music into a multifaceted laboratory where he could experience with many genres, composition techniques and ways of using his voice. Among his influences, the Ethiopian free jazz saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya, the Soviet poet Vladimir Vyssotski and the African-American singer and activist Paul Robeson (somebody I already mentioned in my review of Archie Shepp’s Going Home for those who remember). Dusted with humanism, his approach to music is to create a common bound with every musicians involved in his projects. And to hear such an inventive kind of spiritual jazz today is something I’m really grateful for.
Alabaster DePlume doesn’t prepare his recording sessions a lot, everything he looks for has to do with the pleasure of improvisation. But this does not make GOLD less consistent or more chaotic. Instead, it allows him to create an album where his musical and lyrical themes all scintillate like a kaleidoscope. Build around circular melodies, his tenor sax transmutes alongside the voices, strings and electronic textures it finds on its way. But it never bursts, always matching the pace and the intensity given by the other musicians. With 19 tracks, GOLD could be twice longer or shorter, because what matter to DePlume is not the quantity but the number of ideas. And this album has so many different ones. It may be one of the most prismatic albums of the year.
When he starts singing on I’m Gonna Say Seven, it’s hard not to think about early Leonard Cohen vocals. But this softness he finds isn’t dedicated to somebody in particular. This is an album about self-love and affirmation, themes you’ll here on songs like Fucking Let Them and Don’t Forget You’re Precious. Because the Mancunian artist knows that helping others means you need to put yourself first. It’s hard to spread harmless love around you if you don’t start by trying to love yourself first. What he wants is to wash the fear away. Because if you first find his music comfortable and relaxing, you will also hear how everything can feel tensed within a second. If DePlume stops moving, singing and playing, everything might crumble.
Since the beginning of COVID, many artists explored their fears and naked ansxieties. This was the music of 2021, with Parannoul, Indigo De Souza or Bo Burnham. But in 2022, music now start to focus on the healing process. Artists like Mydreamfever (also Parannoul), Anaïs Mitchell and FKA Twigs all composed albums that helped them reunite with their inner self. And Alabaster DePlume perfectly knows how difficult this path is. But his intelligence allows him to give birth to a clear-sighted album when it comes to fighting to get better and focus on yourself. This is a struggle, and the spontaneity and delicacy of the musician and singer are the main tools he uses in order to make us feel that struggle. He lies naked and proud, brazen and in motion, conscious of who he is, and GOLD is the perfect amplifying mirror of his will to keep moving forward.
Alabaster DePlume doesn’t prepare his recording sessions a lot, everything he looks for has to do with the pleasure of improvisation. But this does not make GOLD less consistent or more chaotic. Instead, it allows him to create an album where his musical and lyrical themes all scintillate like a kaleidoscope. Build around circular melodies, his tenor sax transmutes alongside the voices, strings and electronic textures it finds on its way. But it never bursts, always matching the pace and the intensity given by the other musicians. With 19 tracks, GOLD could be twice longer or shorter, because what matter to DePlume is not the quantity but the number of ideas. And this album has so many different ones. It may be one of the most prismatic albums of the year.
When he starts singing on I’m Gonna Say Seven, it’s hard not to think about early Leonard Cohen vocals. But this softness he finds isn’t dedicated to somebody in particular. This is an album about self-love and affirmation, themes you’ll here on songs like Fucking Let Them and Don’t Forget You’re Precious. Because the Mancunian artist knows that helping others means you need to put yourself first. It’s hard to spread harmless love around you if you don’t start by trying to love yourself first. What he wants is to wash the fear away. Because if you first find his music comfortable and relaxing, you will also hear how everything can feel tensed within a second. If DePlume stops moving, singing and playing, everything might crumble.
Since the beginning of COVID, many artists explored their fears and naked ansxieties. This was the music of 2021, with Parannoul, Indigo De Souza or Bo Burnham. But in 2022, music now start to focus on the healing process. Artists like Mydreamfever (also Parannoul), Anaïs Mitchell and FKA Twigs all composed albums that helped them reunite with their inner self. And Alabaster DePlume perfectly knows how difficult this path is. But his intelligence allows him to give birth to a clear-sighted album when it comes to fighting to get better and focus on yourself. This is a struggle, and the spontaneity and delicacy of the musician and singer are the main tools he uses in order to make us feel that struggle. He lies naked and proud, brazen and in motion, conscious of who he is, and GOLD is the perfect amplifying mirror of his will to keep moving forward.