ALABASTER DEPLUME

ALABASTER DEPLUME AT VILLAGE UNDERGROUND, SHOREDITCH – 1/5/22

I buy a drink and take position right at the front, up against the railings. There’s going to be a bit of a wait, so I only take little sips. Someone sits down and then everyone starts sitting down, so I sit down too. I had been worrying about my feet/legs getting tired, so sitting down seems like a good idea. Sitting here, it’s interesting to watch people having their conversations: the way they look into the eyes of the person they are talking to, the way they gesticulate, the way they laugh and nod and say “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and stuff like that to show that they are really paying attention. It’s interesting. I could learn a lot.

I read somewhere that ALABASTER DEPLUME assembles his band afresh every time he arrives in a new city. There are no rehearsals, and the musicians just follow his direction and melodic cues. And there’s certainly an air of spontaneity about him. He’s like a guy at a festival who approaches you asking for a light and ends up hanging around for the whole weekend, before disappearing from your life forever. The songs usually start tentatively with dePlume blowing one of his fluttery, oblique melodies on the saxophone, which he holds at an angle from the side of his mouth, or just humming until someone else joins in. The songs then slowly build in intensity over several minutes before retreating back to fragility. It’s quite a beautiful thing, really. You can feel the musicians’ vulnerability when they don’t quite know what they’re doing and their relief when it all comes together. At the end of each song dePlume seems ecstactic, as if he can’t quite believe that he’s pulled it off again, as if he can’t quite believe his good fortune. “I love this,” he keeps saying. “I love doing this. I love my life.” And then he tells us that we’re “fucking beautiful” and he thanks us for living because it’s “fucking tricky”, and we’re doing it, and not everyone’s doing it, but we are. We’re doing it. 

Doing it