Alabaster Deplume - Come With Fierce Grace - Import Greek Honey Vinyl LP Record

Credits:

Alabaster Deplume

Description:

When British saxophonist and composer Alabaster DePlume (aka Angus Fairbairn) recorded 2022s double-length GOLD, he and his musicians created a splendidly sonorous double album from joint efforts in spontaneous composition and collective compositional development. Holed up for weeks at Londons Total Refreshment Centre, they celebrated music-making itself as a communal process. The albums sound emerged from focusing on the relationship possibilities among collaborators in the moment. DePlume and company recorded far more material than could be used on GOLD. Following a period of intense touring, he closely listened to the extant material. Compelled, he began assembling that music in new ways -- adding, editing, subtracting, recombining, and rearranging. Come with Fierce Grace offers 12 mostly instrumental selections with three vocals cuts with alternating singers who include Guinean percussionist/vocalist Falle Nioke, British songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Donna Thompson, and drummer/vocalist Momoko Watanabe Gill (aka MettaShiba), as well as a four-voice female backing chorus. The GOLD sessions (and these by association) featured a large cast of players. DePlume employed drummers Tom Skinner (Sons of Kemet, London Brew), Sarathy Korwar (UPAJ Collective) and Ursula Russell; bassists Tom Herbert (London Brew, Polar Bear), Ruth Goller (Melt Yourself Down), and Matt Webb; guitarists Rozi Plain, Conrad Singh, and James Howard; pianist Matthew Bourne; and cellist/vocalist Hannah Miller. The same players aside, this differs considerably from its predecessor. These tunes arent lush but are organic and embryonic. Theyre not populated with endless retakes and edits; they are nearly raw, intimate, and candid in presentation and production. The music is loose, airy, open, exploratory, and more often than not, gentle. Opener "Sibomandi" contains a circular bass line and woolly saxophone vamp framing hand percussion and bass as Nioke soulfully intones the lyric like a chant. "To That Voice and Say" combines Nigerian highlife, post-bop, and neo-soul grooves introduced by DePlumes rippling tenor. Halfway in, it shifts to noirish, skeletal jazz-funk. Neither the sequential "Give Me Away" or "Fall on Flowers" sound like fully developed ideas, but both are minimal and entrancing. The ballad "Did You Know" is sung by Gill. Her slippery, nocturnal instrument, even in its restraint, is elegant and resonant with poignant romantic emotion. "Levels of Human" offers an unusual guide vamp from the bass, saxophone, hi-hat, and tom-toms, then follows an infectious yet etheric ballad framed by the rhythm section. "The Best Thing in the World" follows a simple six-note melody framed by circular tom-toms, bass, a theremin-esque synth, cello, and saxophone as it gently strolls, staggers, and whispers. "Naked Like Water" weds psychedelia, ambience, and modal jazz as Thompsons vocal hovers, swoops, and soars above the smoky groove. Given its laid-back, eerily nocturnal sonic profile, Come with Fierce Grace is easy to embrace on its own -- even if some tracks lack distinctive identities. No matter its release as a separate entity, Come with Fierce Grace is part and parcel of GOLD; its not a mere sequel but a truly worthy companion album. ~ Thom Jurek