Alabaster DePlume – Come With Fierce Grace (International Anthem, 2023)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

International Anthem wasn’t a favorite at its beginnings. Gradually it delivered, to us listeners, with a fierce grace to quote the full of empathy album title, the music of today. Totally out of genres, labels and tagging. It seems to me that International Anthem has become a hub for a wide open roster of musicians who embody anything that comes from the black tradition but definitely travels to the future.

One of them is the Englishman Alabaster DePlume, named Gus Fairbairn in the world outside music. Even though he, obviously, comes from a different tradition than those playing jazz based musics in the States, you can never tell, when listening to the album, that he is not from there. But this isn’t the point, it never was.

There’s no easy way to describe the music in Come With Fierce Grace. This could be pop music, as all the tracks end before the six minute mark and many of them clock around three minutes. They feel (and I mean it as this album is all about sentiment) like small vignettes, passages that incorporate anything that could be called modern music.

DePlume is a spoken-word artist, writer and saxophonist. All those different (or not so different after all) fields conjure a new language, his language. Some are based on the voice, like the threnody of Naked Like Water with Donna Thompson, others use the melody lines of the sax as an instrumental journey for the heart of the sentiment. Soul (like on Did you know with the voice of Momoko Gill), jazz, blues and small ballads create the core of an eclectic, totally new experience –but also as old as the black tradition where partially is based on.

I really love this album and it will make it on my top ten list for 2023. DePlume (along with Celine Voccia if you are asking…) is the biggest musical discovery for me this difficult year and I truly thank him for the music.

Buy and listen here: https://alabasterdeplume.bandcamp.com/album/come-with-fierce-grace

@koultouranafigo