Now Available
Alabaster DePlume
Come With Fierce Grace
((( Photo by Dylan Valley )))
IARC0070:
Alabaster DePlume- Come With Fierce Grace
Out September 8, 2023
In order to record the compositions in his critically-acclaimed 2022 release GOLD, 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.
After spending most of 2022 touring in support of GOLD, 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, Come With Fierce Grace.
Come With Fierce Grace 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 To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1. Come With Fierce Grace 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.
Regarding 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.”
Regarding 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.”
Notes
Produced and arranged by Alabaster DePlume.
Recorded onto tape by Kristian Craig Robinson at Total Refreshment Centre, London.
Mixed by Dave Vettraino at International Anthem Studios, Chicago.
Mastered by David Allen.
Album Art by Raimund Wong.
Insert photo by Chris Almeida.
Layout by Craig Hansen.
Composed in the act of performance by and with:
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
Matthew Bourne – piano
Momoko Gill – lead vocal
Ruth Goller – bass
About the Artist
Alabaster DePlume is a Manchester-born, London-based bandleader, composer, saxophonist, activist and orator. A long-time affiliate of London’s Total Refreshment Centre, DePlume has released albums on Lost Map Records and Chicago label International Anthem, with his recent album, Gold, widely acclaimed as one of the best jazz records of 2022. Committed to a world of radical care and creative collaboration, Alabaster DePlume is not doing things properly, and this makes him very happy.