thread of rapturous appreciation for Alabaster DePlume

Yep he is

oh wow, that is NOT the voice i thought of when listening to cy and lee!

Haha, yeah, not what I was expecting this to sound like either.

I finally got around to listening to Tactics, and it's pretty thrilling, definitely the perfect time to revive Mark Stewart/James Chance style hectoring punk disco (which doesn't entirely capture what they're doing, but it's my immediate point of reference). Also handy to have sean's very FPable "dinky kinda white british devendra dude" descriptor so thoroughly refuted

Listening to Tactics now and it is a lot of fun.

New three song "Visit Croatia" EP with two new songs in the spirit of Cy & Lee
https://open.spotify.com/album/11t6XyMZKJ3riOPFmel6bC

Don't know if these are outtakes or a soon-to-be released follow-up, here for it either way

Lovely new track, only available for 24 hours (it's very Cy and Lee adjacent): https://alabasterdeplume.bandcamp.com/track/bean-instrumental-available-for-24hrs-only

that is nice, thank you!

it is very nice, and i'm enjoying it

is this the new model for the future? 24 hour windows of online availability? i'm being facetious, just because Laurie Anderson had an AMAZING lecture/performance the other day that streamed for 24 hours.

There was also that Phoebe Bridgers / Maggie Rogers Goo Goo Doll charity cover that was only 24 hours too.

I see it mostly with bootlegs/edits where people don't want to have to worry about needing to take them down eventually anyway

A friend sent me a link to the new Andrew Wasylyk track, Dreamt In The Current Of Leafless Winter (Featuring Alabaster DePlume), which is really lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTjlhPMn-7g

nice, thanks for the head's up. as usual, i accidentally started playing the song both in my ilx tab and a separate youtube tab, and it took me 2 minutes to notice, ha!

oh i like him too!

new album in April: https://alabasterdeplume.bandcamp.com/album/gold-go-forward-in-the-courage-of-your-love

some exciting names in the credits: Falle Nioke (!), Sarathy Korwar, the Soccer96 guys

Terrific news! FYI, folks in the US can pre-order directly from International Anthem's bandcamp page as well:

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/gold

ehhh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXE2WceZCsQ

hm I was a little worried about that. frustrating because the music is beautiful

Yeah, not a great single. But I'm optimistic given that it's gonna be a double album. And the other pre-release track on the Bandcamp page is pretty good!

I just knew he was going to go back to the vocals. Idk, his vocals are a great fit on that Soccer96 EP, here it makes me wish for an instrumental version (which, I hope they release at some point?).

given the credits, looks like there's going to be a LOT of vocals on this:

Alabaster DePlume – tenor sax, guitar, synths and voice
Falle Nioke – voice, percussion
Rozi Plain – guitar
Sarathy Korwar – drums, tabla
Tom Skinner – drums
Kenichi Iwasa – percussion
James Howard – guitar
Tom Herbert – double bass
Natalie Pela – voice
Rosa Slade – voice
Elly Condron – voice
Luisa Gerstein – voice
Matt Webb – double bass
Michael Chestnutt – synths
Ursula Russell – drums
Conrad Singh – guitar
Hannah Miller – cello and voice
Donna Thompson – voice
Paddy Steer – synths and percussion
Danalogue – voice and synths
Matthew Bourne – piano
Dilip Harris – Small clone and mimeophon

Well yeah but I'm betting a lot of those are going to be wordless choir-type vocals

To be clear if Falle Nioke was singing on that I wouldn’t be complaining

Tour Dates and Details!

Saturday March 19th at Public Records in Brooklyn, NYC (ticket link)
Alabaster's NYC show ensemble will be curated by jaimie branch. This event, part of International Anthem's new quarterly residency at Public Records is co-presented by the label & Qobuz. Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer will open the show celebrating their album Recordings from the Åland Islands (International Anthem, March 11, 2022).

Wednesday March 23rd at Sleeping Village in Chicago, IL (ticket link)
The Chicago show ensemble will be curated by Monique Golding of Black Monument Ensemble.

Sunday March 27th at Big Ears in Knoxville, TN
As an "artist in residence" for the Big Ears Festival, Alabaster DePlume will hold space and play several sets ahead of his Sunday marquee performance.

Wednesday March 30th at The Lodge Room in Los Angeles, CA (ticket link)
The Los Angeles show ensemble will be curated by Carolos Niño and Jesse Peterson. This event is presented by Aquarium Drunkard with Mia Doi Todd opening.

listening to the promo for Gold now, first song is gorgeous

There’s a “b-side” to this one called “the sound of my feet..” that confirms wordless choir type vocals.

b-side is thee one imo.

I don't have an issue with his voice! Especially when it's hippie chanting. Works fine for me.

Excited for the Big Ears set, looking forward to the album.

this was a wonderful live show and the album is wonderful and wonderful wonderful wonderful

Looking forward to him at Big Ears this week.

Alabaster dePlume, Knoxville, 3.27.22 pic.twitter.com/3DkgNHfwrb

— jeff (@jazyjef) March 29, 2022

Saw that show, he was great. I like his whole radical-positivity vibe. (Big Ears was full of that, with Patti Smith and Lonnie Holley among others.)

Is the album out already? Need to listen to it.

Due out Friday, I'm assuming some folks have received pre-orders already. Read another review yesterday that mentions the vocals will be a real make or break on how someone receives this one. From Dusted:

Given DePlume’s voice is such a strong flavor, Gold’s appeal will no doubt hinge on whether it’s to your taste. I find it fine in small doses, but domineering over the course of a double album. There’s some great music here if you have the patience to cherry-pick the best bits.

yeah, as always, i find Alabaster's stuff-with-vocals really sentimental, MOR, lacking the mystery and sublime that makes the instrumental album special

Yeah the couple of songs I’ve heard with vocals haven’t been exactly my thing but the music itself sounds beautiful. I’ll probably skip half of it.

I'm curious how Intl Anthem sold him on "how about no songs with your polarizing voice?"

ilm feels kinda dead right now, but is everyone loathing this? I'm surprised to be the first to post several days after the album came out. Anyway...

I've only listened to Gold in full once so far, but in many ways it's surpassing my lowered expectations; there's some incredibly beautiful music on this. Obviously his voice is exactly the obstacle I/we feared it would be, but sometimes it works better than I anticipated. I think having had an fairly intense Donovan phase is a help: some of the whispery lullaby stuff reminds me of AGFAFTAG, not to mention the general fey/twee vibes, which will be likely poisonous to some.

That said, I find it somewhat baffling that someone who can play sax as gorgeously and sensitively as he can and can arrange some genuinely sublime group playing insists on giving so much space to such a limited instrument. It reminds me of Robbie Basho singing on Venus in Cancer, this bizarre failure to recognize one's own strengths. Even when the lyrics are inoffensive or even a positive, it's hard to ignore the thinness of his voice or the occasional repetitiveness/shallowness of the melodies—pretty much as I expected, it almost hurts the album when he lets Falle Nioke sing lead, likewise all the backing choir vocals are lovely.

OTOH somehow I don't find it a dealbreaker? If you like Cy & Lee you should absolutely listen to this, there's some very cool new musical directions here that are pretty exciting, and even when I'm feeling itchy wrt the vocals, there are a lot of other things going on that aren't captured by the other album.

for me, the issue is that Cy + Lee is borderline bland/ wallpapery: what renders it sublime is its restraint and space, its willingness to say -less-

so when deplume's in there with repetitive mantras and banal lyrics, none of the lift-off appears: and without that grace, i'm confronted by the worst aspects of the instrumentals (their vapid pleasantness).

yeah if you weren't all in on Cy & Lee this is certainly not going to convince

i'm really surprised sam gendel and sam wilkes haven't been mentioned on this thread.

those of you who are into the instrumentals should check out Music for Saxophone & Bass Guitar.

if you like that, just start exploring sam gendel. his discography is bewilderingly large and consistently great

definitely agree about Sam Gendel. Feels like a lot of his stuff works similar angles to some of the recent IA stuff, as well as that also-slept-on Pino Palladino and Blake Mills album from last year

ilm feels kinda dead right now

I think I mentioned this a few weeks back on the Burial thread. Hard to imagine the ILX of 5+ years ago not keeping a thread about an excellent new Burial release at the top of the New Answers page for weeks. I acknowledge that this may also be my most "it's the children that are wrong" post ever.

Maybe this new Alabaster album is being discussed in the general International Anthem thread?

I don't mean to be facile in dismissing this album merely because of the vocals but I listened to about a third of it and decided I definitely don't need to own it. For comparison's sake, after hearing the first few minutes of Cy and Lee I was rushing to Bandcamp to buy it

It's a weird record, but I feel it was a tough spot creatively to follow up Cy & Lee. On the one hand he's not really a jazz saxophonist, in terms of improvising with a band. But he is great at using his quaver-y style that sounds more like a Japanese flute, and making those beautiful folky instrumentals. But he also couldn't make the same record again, and I assume he doesn't want to either. So he kind of ends up trying to have it all (introducing his vocal/spoken word element, sometimes over Cy & Lee type tracks and sometimes over more live band-ish grooves), and I'll bet most are going to playlist out their favorite tracks?

Personally I wish he would stick to instrumentals, and then start a post-punk band a la that Soccer96 EP. His vocals and lyrics sound soooo much better at higher volume in that context.

xp

I get that this is a weird take but Cy & Lee sounded to me like an easy listening version of Mulatu Astatke etc. Whereas the singing on Gold adds a specific and authentic point of view (even though it is at times ridiculous and a greeting-card version of anti-capitalist), and a spiky "off" flavor that removes it gently from wallpaper music. The voice calls up Donovan, yes, and at times Leonard Cohen—one song even seems to reference "You Know Who I Am;" I even hear something of the more hippie-spoken aspects of late Moss Icon (maybe that's too far ha ha). And the music ranges a lot more widely. It's not just "chill instrumentals," there's at times a clattery dubby feel, like later Can or some On-U Sound instrumental.

I get that, and it probably would have felt like pandering to make Cy & Lee pt 2. Maybe my issue is that he tries to combine the other parts of his musical personality with that sound and have it both ways? It sounds like three albums put together and maybe it would have been better if he had just done something totally different, idk.

His insistence on a raw, unpracticed quality is also palpable here and sort of punk in a Raincoats-like way(?); + the map-diagram included inside the record — how to shape these sessions — is striking, weird gesamtkunstwerk-y shit

Anyway, where Cy & Lee felt soapy and bland to me, I like this.

xp
I haven't worked out my own reference points, but yr last sentence (Freeze's) is def what I was trying to get at with "new musical directions"—this is a fuller album, which might be what sean was objecting to to some degree, but I think there's a lot of value in the additions to the palette.

The "wallpaper" and "pleasant" verdicts on C&L are genuinely odd to me (i.e., not "ur wrong" more just "idgi"), but I don't feel like debating it. I agree with Jordan that following that album up would be a challenge regardless, and making a double album almost inherently screams "trying to have it all."

Do I have this wrong: I thought Cy & Lee was a compilation, that International Anthem selected instrumental tracks from a set of existing recordings. So it's not exactly a coherent statement as such except by the label who saw a lane for a vocal-free DePlume LP.

No, I think that is correct, but it was received as an album which I think is what Jordan had in mind(?). I almost said the "problem" with Gold isn't his voice, it's that he needs an editor, but I'm not sure I actually think that.

I think maybe it's not an accident that the "album" that put him into broader awareness was a compilation of instrumental work. I really dig the instrumental stuff--his breathy, fragile playing style and melodic sensibility really work for me.

But I can't get into the vocal pieces, just immediately turned off. It's a shame as it seems that's what he considers his main work, and it must chafe that people loved his non-vocal work so much...

^ Where I'm at, too

new track is rather nice and Momoko Gill is the only singer on it: https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/come-with-fierce-grace

New album sounds great so far. In parts it reminds me most of John Lurie's music, especially the new Lounge Lizards stuff for the HBO show.

Was not familiar with Momoko Gill before but damn she's multi-talented

he's playing out in my neck of the woods next week ... should I go????

thanks for mentioning that, I hadn't noticed he's coming to Montreal real soon (i.e., yeah I'd go!)

I agree with Jordan, this new one is very good. I'm halfway through and there's only been one brief bit of AdP singing, and yet it's not much like Cy & Lee. Despite my posts upthread I didn't stick with GOLD at all; this is immediately much more compelling.

i went! it was awesome ... kind of indescribable. his band (bassist + drummer, both on backup vocals) was amazing.

way more jazz-metal than i expected!

still not quite sure i'm picking up what this guy's putting down... this was more amanda palmer-meets-devendra banhart than i would have liked. kinda the elfin mirror-image of a band like Caroline? but the band was tight as hell - Ruth Goller and Donna Thompson just dazzling and heavy

It is kinda funny that he has this coffeehouse poet side that he was doing before he had a hit with his instrumental side, and he keeps trying to work it in to everybody's confusion.

xp
yeah this was unexpected and imo unique. as you both said the band were fantastic. I can hear jazz-metal, but I was thinking more about no wave, various uk post-punks, even distantly Morphine in terms of how much power they got out of that set-up. Though tbh I can't really think of anything else I've seen that had the same breadth of style from just 3 people.

For me, the banhart vibe (I've never actually listened to AP) that was ultimately fatally off-putting on GOLD was laced with so much more self-aware humour and irony live, while still being deeply sincere, that I think I should revisit that album with this more sweary & playful AdP in mind. I mean, yeah sometimes his vocal stuff was a little precious-hippie (but never genteel), but other times he seemed closer to idk Mark Stewart or Johnny Rotten or something. And as spiritual-love-and-kindness as some of his messages are, he also obviously has more of a concrete/activist-y politics, which I don't recall ever seeing in DB.

Also endearing to see how much people loved it/him. My friend got too hot and had to duck out during the last song (an a capella "I Was Gonna Fight Fascism"; they also did "Buy It" from that EP, which I thought was interesting, maybe due to the similarity of the trio set-up & the post-punk-ish sound in general?) and he said everyone walking out was talking about how it wasn't what they were expecting.

Go see him if you get the chance imo

ha, yeah, in a live setting, I thought his vocal stuff was like if johnny rotten tried to turn into jonathan richman. it worked for me!

Interesting, yeah I'd love it if he leaned into the post-punk/Soccer96 EP sound for the vocal tracks rather than integrating it into the more tranquil music.

Was playing this at the weekend - sure it features Deplume - and had one of those "This sounds so good - it's the most I've ever enjoyed it and can't believe I will ever enjoy it this much again" moments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id1K8TUSIhM

he played a pretty sweet set sunday in the rain. serious daevid allen solo album vibes