{"title":"Alabaster DePlume","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"alabaster-deplume-to-cy-lee-instrumentals-vol-1","title":"Alabaster DePlume - To Cy \u0026 Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eIn the words of Emma Warren:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlabaster DePlume is not doing things properly, and this makes him very happy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDePlume is a Manchester-born, London-based bandleader, composer, saxophonist, activist and orator. He’s a resident at the legendary London creative hub Total Refreshment Centre, a recording artist for the off-grid, Scottish Hebridean island label Lost Map, and now the latest arrival into Chicago-based International Anthem’s growing family of progressive musical explorationists. Whilst much of his music contains vocals – often whispered imperatives – this is a collection of instrumentals, drenched in feeling and recorded over four albums and eight earth years in cities across the UK.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe music of \"To Cy \u0026amp; Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1\" contains naturally elegant orchestration wrapped around something visceral and primordial. Swirled inside the 11 pieces are shades of Japanese Min’yo folk, Celtic folk, the Ethio-jazz of saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya and hints of the pan-human ‘ancient music’ that sat underneath Arthur Russell’s melodies on First Thought, Best Thought. The music is filled with space, inspired, he says, by computer games and Japanese animation, particularly Joe Hisaishi’s\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esoundtrack for Studio Ghibli’s Castle In The Sky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe record combines new compositions alongside bygone instrumentals and understated lullabies that feel like they’ve been picked from between the cracks of civilisation. These songs were collected from albums \"Copernicus,\" \"The Jester,\" and \"Peach\" – under-the-radar records that preceded his critically acclaimed 2019 release The Corner of a Sphere. The new tunes feature Dan ‘Danalogue’ Leavers of The Comet Is Coming and Sarathy Korwar alongside a host of London’s finest musicians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo Cy \u0026amp; Lee… has a suitably individual genesis. DePlume was working for Ordinary Lifestyles, a charity in North Manchester which supports people with disabilities to live in their own homes and to live fulfilling lives. Specifically, he was working with the titular Cy and Lee. His job was to get the guys socialising and he did this by making up songs with them. They’d make up melodies together, humming tunes in the house when they needed something calm, or when they were haring round the city in a battered car. DePlume would record these impromptu sessions in his phone, then go to the studio and use the material as starting points for songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe also ran music sessions for Cy, Lee and their friends. “People would focus on a central point, tuning in to one another. There are things we can’t put into words, which can be expressed with sound and music. These guys have fewer words than us, some of them have none. When we put some feelings into a music expression – that’s liberation.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a method he uses in live shows wherever possible, placing himself and the musicians in the round. The aim is to maximise the creative benefits that a community of players and listeners can bring to the music. It’s a collectivist and humanist approach to making music that sits underneath everything he does. This is music made for a reason, and those reasons include – to paraphrase some of the catchphrases he uses both on stage and in conversation – mixing people up, asking everyone to be as much themselves as they possibly can and the hardcore encouragement expressed in his most popular line, shouted back at him by audiences wherever he goes: “You’re doing very well!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePractically, he purposefully brings together players of different skill levels and different backgrounds so they have to interact differently, placing them in unusual situations in which to record. “I wanted to destroy the idea of correct so we were playing it different ways for fun. We had a very magical time playing the tunes”. This is activism expressed through gorgeous music that breaks down barriers by encouraging that most powerful emotion: connectedness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne source of these gorgeous instrumentals is \"Peach,\" an album that later bestowed a name upon legendary monthly sessions he’d run once he’d moved to London. The music was recorded in the middle of the room at Antwerp Mansion, around a big dinner cooked for 60 people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The dinner made the air vibrate in the way it did. We did it a certain way, for fun, getting people to shout out instructions – ‘make it like a hangover!’ ‘Make it like a barrel rolling down the ice!’ And we did it that way. You’ve got people eating and drinking around you and they might shout out anything. You can let go and respond.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe two new pieces were recorded at London’s now-famous Total Refreshment Centre with Danalogue (on piano) Sarathy Korwar (drums), Chestnutt (of Snapped Ankles, on synth), Donna Thompson (voice) and James Howard (guitar). They had a day to record, and DePlume was in post-gig exhaustion. His saxophone was as battered as he was and was failing to play certain notes. “When something is broken or absent or missing, you go around it and that’s what makes it good,” he says. “Then it belongs to that moment. I want to make things that belong to the moment.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDePlume’s politics might be more evident in vocal songs from his live repertoire when he’s reshaping advertising slogans into a call to arms or encouraging activism on “I Was Gonna Fight Fascism,” but his commitment to the cause is as palpable through the instrumentals of Cy \u0026amp; Lee... This is music designed to respond to what Russian revolutionary poet Mayakovsky described as a “social command.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I like the idea that we’re not just doing frivolous decoration. We’re doing work for society. I like to listen for what needs to be said.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Years ago I played a bit of sax in other people’s gigs. I realised I was waiting for someone to give me permission to do my own thing. I noticed that no-one will ever give you permission to do your awesome shit, because they don’t know what it is. It’s impossible for them to give you permission. Who gave me permission to talk to you like this? I gave myself fucking permission.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlabaster DePlume is not doing things properly. Hallelujah.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eReleased February 28, 2020\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918417682773,"sku":"IARC0030LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP (IA11 Edition)","offer_id":53919439913301,"sku":"IARC0030LP11","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3666438350_16.jpg?v=1779794353"},{"product_id":"alabaster-deplume-come-with-fierce-grace","title":"Alabaster DePlume - Come With Fierce Grace","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn order to record the compositions in his critically-acclaimed 2022 release\u003cem\u003e GOLD\u003c\/em\u003e, Alabaster DePlume instilled a culture of creativity by leading his ensembles in spontaneous composition and development. To allow them to be present, he kept the musicians constantly creating across several weeks of sessions at London creative hub Total Refreshment Centre. This process resulted in an abundance of material, much more than he could fit onto the initial double LP.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter spending most of 2022 touring in support of\u003cem\u003e GOLD\u003c\/em\u003e, Alabaster spent much of early 2023 revisiting the additional material from those Total Refreshment Centre sessions – adding, subtracting, producing and arranging – resulting in an entirely new album, \u003cem\u003eCome With Fierce Grace\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eCome With Fierce Grace\u003c\/em\u003e is an album made of authentic and unstipulated – yet welcomed – human interaction. It is for the most part an album of instrumentals, with exception of a few vocal features by Momoko Gill (aka MettaShiba), Falle Nioke, and Donna Thompson. However the instrumentals on this album are much more embryonic and unfiltered than the lush orchestrations heard on Alabaster’s breakout 2020 album \u003cem\u003eTo Cy \u0026amp; Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003eCome With Fierce Grace\u003c\/em\u003e is perhaps the most raw and candid portrait of Alabaster’s creative compositional process we’ve yet to hear, as he’s captured vividly in the room with his collaborators – stretching, exploring, working to deepen and expand the emotions underlying his melodic and poetic frameworks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRegarding the process, Alabaster cites a similarity to how elements in nature contribute to shared work and beauty without a collective motive – a bee’s own motives result in the delivery of pollen. As he says: “The great thing wants to happen, let us allow it to happen.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRegarding the origin of the album’s name: On his first trip to perform in the US in March 2022, Alabaster collected messages from individuals, as he asked them if there is anything they would like him to share with his audiences. One message (from a person who preferred to remain anonymous) asked Alabaster to encourage people to “come with fierce grace.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReleases September 8, 2023\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProduced and arranged by\u003c\/strong\u003e Alabaster DePlume.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRecorded onto tape by\u003c\/strong\u003e Kristian Craig Robinson at Total Refreshment Centre, London.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMixed by\u003c\/strong\u003e Dave Vettraino at International Anthem Studios, Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMastered by\u003c\/strong\u003e David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlbum Art by\u003c\/strong\u003e Raimund Wong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInsert photo by\u003c\/strong\u003e Chris Almeida.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLayout by\u003c\/strong\u003e Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eComposed in the act of performance by and with:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlabaster DePlume \u003c\/strong\u003e– tenor sax, guitar, synths and voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFalle Nioke \u003c\/strong\u003e– voice, percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRozi Plain \u003c\/strong\u003e– guitar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSarathy Korwar\u003c\/strong\u003e – drums, tabla\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTom Skinner\u003c\/strong\u003e – drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKenichi Iwasa\u003c\/strong\u003e – percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJames Howard\u003c\/strong\u003e – guitar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTom Herbert\u003c\/strong\u003e – double bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNatalie Pela\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRosa Slade\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eElly Condron\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLuisa Gerstein\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMatt Webb\u003c\/strong\u003e – double bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMichael Chestnutt\u003c\/strong\u003e – synths\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUrsula Russell\u003c\/strong\u003e – drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConrad Singh\u003c\/strong\u003e – guitar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHannah Miller\u003c\/strong\u003e – cello and voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDonna Thompson\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMatthew Bourne\u003c\/strong\u003e – piano\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMomoko Gill\u003c\/strong\u003e – lead vocal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRuth Goller\u003c\/strong\u003e – bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll rights reserved\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Greek Honey\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918544953685,"sku":"IARC0070LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918545183061,"sku":"IARC0070LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918545379669,"sku":"IARC0070CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3957026135_10.jpg?v=1779803973"},{"product_id":"alabaster-deplume-a-blade-because-a-blade-is-whole","title":"Alabaster DePlume - A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eAlbum Notes by Liz Pelly:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlabaster DePlume often asks a simple question: what do people need? In his work, at his shows, in his collaborations, the Mancunian singer-saxophonist and poet-philosopher poses this to the people around him. What are people looking for? In recent years, the same reply kept coming up: healing, healing, people need healing. But why, and what does it mean to heal, especially in a world where the very idea is often commodified and sold as a luxury? If people were coming to his music for something so mysterious, he ought to figure it out. Maybe he ought to try some healing himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For a long time, I've always tried to give responsibility for my value to someone else,” DePlume told me on a recent phone call. It seemed he’d become so caught up in the work of forging connections, and thinking about the effects of his work on others, that he’d lost a sense of himself. “I was working on that,” he explained.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis experiment in healing included slowing down, reading, reflecting, and even taking up the practice of jiu-jitsu. DePlume wrote poetry, too, including the book 'Looking for my value: prologue to a blade', seventy pages of verse rooted in its title’s great search, in finding strength of self within a community, alongside\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emeditations on the paradox of the blade. “The blade, that divides, is whole,” he writes in the introduction. “Healing is the forming of a whole, and a whole is singular, more itself, as in more one, as in more alone.” A blade could be used to attack, to shave, to sever, but it could also be used to cut oneself loose—in the process of getting free.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What's the opposite of sleep? It’s trying to sleep,” he told me. “And so what's the opposite of looking for my value? It is knowing my value. It simply is there. My dignity is there. I don't need anyone else to know my dignity, or me, to know it. I know it first. I can't seek it from another. I stand for it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSelections from the poetry book ultimately became the lyrics across half of the tracks on 'A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole', DePlume’s latest full-length work for the reliably great International Anthem label: eleven songs of agency and survival and presence; of confronting life’s pains rather than trying to avoid them; of banishing escapism. In sum, it documents his learning of the fact that dignity and self-determination are prerequisites for becoming whole, which is to say, for healing. If a blade were broken it would not serve its purpose; it must be unbroken, it must be whole, to be of use.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the Alabaster DePlume songbook, the celestial ease of his instrumental tracks can sometimes feel like a trojan horse for a voice that is disarmingly honest about the heaviness of existence. Opener “Oh My Actual Days” is true to form in that sense, with DePlume’s tenor sax and Macie Stewart’s ghostly strings playing together like a slow march towards an inner reckoning, one that’s beautiful because it is true. The punchy and contemplative “Thank You My Pain” makes a rhythmic refrain from his titular lyric, inspired by the Vietnamese monk and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh, who urged the importance of listening to one’s own pain. “Hello my little pain, I know you are here,” Nhất Hạnh would say. “I am home to take care of you. I do not want to cover you up with consumption anymore.” While writing A Blade, DePlume “watched loads of him on YouTube.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen there’s the gorgeous swell of “Invincibility,” an ode to self-respect that feels a bit like a choir of angels led by a trickster, a group contemplating: how do we live with the forces that seek to destroy us? The whole song feels like a heavy exhale, or like the feeling of reaching the surface after a long while underwater. “If I meet with my feelings, they cannot destroy me,” he told me. “When I allow myself to embody them, physically, then I live through that feeling and I meet with it and I make peace with it and I find that my feeling is me, and I welcome it. It is a sense that I cannot be destroyed by my feeling. I am invincible.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Form a V” is the closest DePlume comes to a monologue, and also his song most indebted to his jiu-jitsu practice. “I’ve only been doing it for the past two or three years,” he told me. “But now I don’t know how you get by without it.” The song takes inspiration from a tradition where a whole dojo will stand in the shape of a V, facing just one lone individual, who is then attacked quickly and repeatedly by each of the others. “The title is a challenge to the world,” DePlume explained. “Go on, form a v—I am ready.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcross the first half of the record, when the sax comes in short phrases, it feels like a highlighter over lines in DePlume’s poetry book. Other times, it plays out like an extension of his voice. “Playing the saxophone feels like singing,” he said. A transfixing run of instrumentals on the second half of the record includes “Prayer for My Sovereign Dignity,” an anthem for self-possession. “Believing in yourself feels ridiculous,” he says. “It's ridiculous, but that's what it takes. That's what's required. To stand for yourself is absurd. Let us do the absurd that is standing for ourselves. There is this prayer going on in the background—you can't quite tell what the words are, but it's basically, I'm praying for my sovereign dignity but I don't need to pray for it. It's not going to be given to me. I already have it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere DePlume’s previous material was drawn from collective sessions, improvisation, and editing, A Blade was tightly composed, arranged and produced by DePlume himself. From there, he brought his compositions to a cast of players and co-arrangers, including Macie Stewart (strings), Donna Thompson (backing vocals), and Momoko Gill (strings and backing vocals), for sessions at the collective arts space Total Refreshment Centre, where he has long been involved.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBorn Gus Fairbairn, DePlume is a man of many past lives. He played “rock band type music” as a teenager, and started playing improvised music around 2008. He is compelled by how improvising allows him to “put faith in others.” He taught himself the saxophone around the time that he became employed as a support worker assisting men with mental disabilities; he once called playing music with them “one of the best breakthroughs for me as an artist.” His debut as Alabaster DePlume came in May 2012, while he was still living in Manchester. He moved to London in 2015 and took up residency at Total Refreshment Centre, where he was encouraged to put on a monthly concert, leading to the series Peach, releasing a namesake album that year, too. His music, from the start, has been imbued with his politics and values; he was maybe arrested once during a protest with the environmental group Extinction Rebellion. His proper international breakthrough came in 2020 with 'To Cy \u0026amp; Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1', after nearly a decade of steadily releasing records.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn a phone call in the fall of 2024, we barely speak about any of this though. For at least an hour, we mostly just speak about his recent trip to Palestine, and how could we not? DePlume had traveled to Bethlehem in the spring for a conference hosted by a local Lutheran pastor, before meeting up with musicians from a community arts space, the Wonder Cabinet, and the independent radio station, Radio Alhara. “Palestine is a place where people make records,” he says. “I want to normalize the dignity of that. It's not like, oh, I'm going to make a thing about Palestine. I am just there, and I'm making a thing.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the end of 2024, DePlume prefaced A Blade with a collection of recent works: the poetry book and a three-track EP partially recorded in Bethlehem, and in collaboration with Palestinian musicians. There’s “Honeycomb” and “Cremisan,” both recorded during his “Sounds of Places” residency at Wonder Cabinet; “Cremisan” documents the conclusion of a daylong performance presented by Wonder Cabinet and Radio alHara, June 1, 2024, described as “a cry from the Cremisan Valley (Bethlehem, Palestine) to Rafah (Gaza).” The EP’s final recording, “Gifts of Olive,” references the soul-wrenching poem “If I Must Die” by Refaat Alareer, professor of English literature at the Islamic University in Gaza, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo suggest that dignity is a human right we are all entitled to is to say: by nature of being alive, every human life has worth. Contemplating the very concept of human dignity also raises the daily indignities that are so normalized in a world of suffering. The lack of access to clean water, air, housing, healthcare. Without the basic necessities of life, we cannot know dignity. And how can people know dignity if they are living under a constant state of military attack, if they are living as the target of a genocide?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The album was written before the genocide started, but I had Palestine on my mind all the time,” DePlume explains. “This question of dignity, sovereignty, and the work of healing. It has a relevance in what's being perpetrated there by the Israeli state, and taking responsibility for my place in that. I pay my taxes here in the United Kingdom—I am contributing to, as a white Englishman, the country that brought the Balfour Declaration, that brought the Sykes-Picot Agreement, that supports and enables the colonization and the settler-colonial project in Palestine. It is my issue, and I have a position where I can speak about it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dignity” has roots in the Latin dignitatem: worthiness. And instilling the plain truth of every human life’s worth has been a recurring commitment in DePlume’s work. “They can’t use us on one another if we don’t forget we’re precious,” he sang in 2022, summing the emotional core of his 2022 album 'GOLD', concerns of shared humanity that play out into the new works as well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We make stories in our lives,” DePlume says. “Oh, I need my story. Oh, something bad happened, and I need to heal upon that. Then I will be healed and all will be good, happily ever after. But no, it is work that needs doing all the time. We all are wounded in our many different ways. And there are degrees of healed, or wounded. Basically, we are either doing one thing or we're doing the other. How do I know I am not destroying myself? I only know that when I am working on healing.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased March 7, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlabaster DePlume – voice, tenor and baritone sax, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, synths\u003cbr\u003eConrad Singh – electric guitar\u003cbr\u003eDonna Thompson – drums, voice, vocal arrangement for Invincibility\u003cbr\u003eHannah Miller – cello\u003cbr\u003eJohn Ellis – piano\u003cbr\u003eMacie Stewart – violin, string arrangements\u003cbr\u003eMikey Kenney – violin, voice\u003cbr\u003eMomoko Gill – voice, drums, string arrangement for Form a V\u003cbr\u003eRozi Plain – bass\u003cbr\u003eRuth Goller – bass, voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eComposed and Produced by Alabaster DePlume, except Salty Road Dogs Victory Anthem, co-composed with Conrad Singh, Momoko Gill and Rozi Plain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded to analogue tape at Total Refreshment Centre\u003cbr\u003eEngineered \u0026amp; recorded by Kristian Craig Robinson, except Invincibility, Kuzushi and Too True engineered \u0026amp; recorded by Alabaster DePlume\u003cbr\u003eStrings engineered by Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dilip Harris\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003eArtwork by Rebecca Salvadori\u003cbr\u003ePortrait photo by Chris Almeida\u003cbr\u003eDesign \u0026amp; Layout by Aaron Lowell Denton\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"That Was My Garden\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919284298069,"sku":"IARC0090LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919275974997,"sku":"IARC0090LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919270699349,"sku":"IARC0090CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"IARC0090LPG","offer_id":53919283380565,"sku":"IARC0090LPG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2823532332_10.jpg?v=1779881659"},{"product_id":"alabaster-deplume-dear-children-of-our-children-i-knew-epilogue","title":"Alabaster DePlume - Dear Children Of Our Children, I Knew: Epilogue","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e'Dear Children of Our Children, I Knew: Epilogue' is a new EP by Alabaster DePlume, recorded during the middle of his March 2025 US tour. DePlume had been playing shows with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Tcheser Holmes, performing music from his critically acclaimed album 'A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole' (released March 2025). The trio’s onstage rapport was so immediate and strong that, on an off day in Brooklyn, DePlume chose to capture that connection, recording this collection of instrumental pieces shaped by the experience of performing, sharing, and improvising off the music of A Blade for audiences across the US.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDePlume says: “Meeting with you all at the shows I sensed that you felt voiceless, on this ethical issue that also spelled out what we’re seeing today, in the form of ICE. That experience with you is etched into me, like graffiti or a poster on the wall. It’s my job to deliver your voice, and that’s what this record is. And to take action. That urgency compelled me to record then. And now here we are. As we said, this world is awakening to the reality it was already living.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDear Children serves as an epilogue to A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, and as a companion bookend with his October 2024 EP 'Cremisan: Prologue to A\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eBlade'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs with almost everything that DePlume has put forth in recent years, the connection of all these works to Palestine is deep. The Cremisan EP itself was recorded in Palestine. Dear Children incorporates field recordings and samples of children playing and of normal life in the West Bank, and its cover art depicts wheatpaste posters of a drawing made by a 13-year-old boy from Gaza (used with permission). The inscription on the cover art says, in Arabic, “Dedicated to the mother of the martyr\/witness Obaida Ahmed al-Qiram. May you rest in peace. From your student, the artist, Hasan Jawad Abudayyeh.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003eReleases May 5, 2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded at Figure 8 Recording, Brooklyn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Alabaster DePlume in Total Refreshment Centre, London.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlabaster DePlume - saxophones, sampler, synths, guitars\u003cbr\u003eShahzad Ismaily - bass\u003cbr\u003eTcheser Holmes - drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered by Tyler Hicks.\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSamples by Mai Mai Mai, Marta in Brooklyn and Aladdien in Bethlehem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing by Hassan Jawad Abudeia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstallation and cover photo by Rich Jones.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eAll rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53920279593301,"sku":"IARC0110LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1947218949_10.jpg?v=1780411273"}],"url":"https:\/\/international-anthem.k7store.com\/collections\/alabaster-deplume.oembed","provider":"International Anthem","version":"1.0","type":"link"}