Alabaster DePlume has a knack for turning the everyday into the absurd. Based in London’s underground, the saxophonist, composer and spoken word artist Gus Fairbairn aka Alabaster DePlume has a ruthlessly creative and witty approach to experimental songwriting; creating Eastern-influenced anthems stuffed with richly evocative poetry and inspiration from spiritual jazz, British folk music, ethio-jazz and beyond.

His 2022 double album “Gold (Go Forward in the Courage of Your Love)” was recorded at London’s Total Refreshment Centre over two weeks. He invited a different set of musicians each day, including Sarathy Korwar, Tom Skinner (Sons of Kemet/The Smile), Rozi Plain (Devendra Banhart) and Tom Herbert (Polar Bear), playing the tunes to click tracks so that DePlume, who also produced it, could cut the 17 hours of sessions together like a collage.

“Gold” is a sonorous double album which celebrates the communal act of making music and the relati...

Alabaster DePlume has a knack for turning the everyday into the absurd. Based in London’s underground, the saxophonist, composer and spoken word artist Gus Fairbairn aka Alabaster DePlume has a ruthlessly creative and witty approach to experimental songwriting; creating Eastern-influenced anthems stuffed with richly evocative poetry and inspiration from spiritual jazz, British folk music, ethio-jazz and beyond.

His 2022 double album “Gold (Go Forward in the Courage of Your Love)” was recorded at London’s Total Refreshment Centre over two weeks. He invited a different set of musicians each day, including Sarathy Korwar, Tom Skinner (Sons of Kemet/The Smile), Rozi Plain (Devendra Banhart) and Tom Herbert (Polar Bear), playing the tunes to click tracks so that DePlume, who also produced it, could cut the 17 hours of sessions together like a collage.

“Gold” is a sonorous double album which celebrates the communal act of making music and the relationships that can be explored, when you purposefully avoid the standard way of doing things. It contains filmic pieces which oscillate between the otherworldly and the trenchantly grounded, rendered maximally human through the recording process.

A process that is people first, not product first, ensures the music’s uniqueness; often gem-like. Alabaster DePlume’s songs are built on texturally rich, circular melodies and luminous tones that transmit calmness and generosity in warm waves – unless they’re raging against complacency and the everyday inhumanity of end times capitalism.

Released on International Anthem (US) and Lost Maps (UK), “Gold” has seen high praise on both sides of the Atlantic before his debut concert in Denmark at Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2022 on July 8 at the Freetown of Christiania-venue Loppen.

///

“The Mancunian saxophonist and poet’s warm and wise album is a balm of spoken word and spiritual jazz, both strangely uncomfortable and strangely comforting.” – Best New Music @ Pitchfork.com

“Most of Gold’s tracks mix DePlume’s hushed declamations with his tenor sax, whose tremulous tone and delicate, circular melodies recall Ethiopian master Getatchew Mekuria, though there are Ayleresque honks on angrier pieces” – The Guardian

“Gold illustrates how willing Angus Fairbairn is to take chances, creating sounds that challenge the notions of what music is and can be in the 21st century.” – Spectrum Culture

“Manchester’s Alabaster DePlume is one of the most underrated artists working in Britain, a jazz-folk boundary-pusher with a quiet, and quietly disturbing music box aesthetic whose flourishes reward repeated listening” – Jazzwise

“Truly remarkable… Alabaster, a captivating artist, singer, saxophonist, poet-the kind of warm eccentric spirit and power of observation I loved in Ivor Cutler.” – Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC 6 Music
...

Read more Hide full description.