thread of rapturous appreciation for Alabaster DePlume

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