thread of rapturous appreciation for Alabaster DePlume

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.

One of those new colors on the palette I really love is the steel/slide guitar

BTW by describing Cy & Lee as wallpaper I'm not trying to diminish anyone else's liking of it, more trying to reason out my own responses to it. I haven't gone back to it, I might hear it differently post-Gold.

just listened to this album and liked it a whole lot more than I was expecting after the first few tracks, where the vocals felt way too dominant - and I didn’t even listen to the lyrics. (as for comparisons, I was veering between Leonard Cohen and Richard Fairbrass: not good)
but I kept listening, because the music was wonderful a lot of the time. by the time I got to “Who Is A Fool” I even loved a track *because* of its vocal. the closing track is a beauty - an instrumental one.

ilm feels kinda dead right now

xxp yeah, wallpaper isn't always a bad thing---think that was a take on Vivaldi even at his (lifetime) peak, and I liked the sunset-climbing-the-wallpaper interludes on Live-Evil, softening me up for return of the onslaughts. Cy & Lee had me thinking of primo John Martyn textures x grooves, so twee vocals would not be unexpected, and can always listen around them probably (although I haven't tried w DePlume yet); that worked OK w Donovan, and his acknowledged (also obvious) influence, Bert Jansch.

It's not an exact match but the combination of his lyrics and singing reminds me of NoHo Hank from "Barry."

lol

For years I was put off Robert Wyatt's work by his voice and the whimsy, both of which I now love; I'm hoping it's the same with AdP, bcs I think there's some great stuff here.

I can't stand this stuff

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