Alabaster DePlume Shares "Greek Honey Slick" ft. Tom Skinner | Touring US | Come With Fierce Grace Out Sept 8

ALABASTER DEPLUME SHARES NEW SINGLE "GREEK HONEY SLICK"
FEATURING TOM SKINNER (THE SMILE)
COME WITH FIERCE GRACE LP DUE SEPT 8 VIA INTL ANTHEM
MONTH LONG US TOUR STARTS IN AUGUST

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Stream & Download the Album In Full Above

RIYL: John Cale, Dorothy Ashby, Arthur Russell, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Mary Lattimore
Genres: Jazz, Folk, Experimental

"upbeat and tentatively triumphant" - Stereogum
"Alabaster has done it again" - Gilles Peterson
"[DePlume] delivers a serene reminder of what matters most" - Pitchfork
"DePlume is a fixture on the London avant-jazz scene whose greatest value is openness" - NPR 
"He’s a garrulous, heart-on-sleeve rabble-rouser, an anti-cynic keen to reduce the fourth wall to rubble." 
- The Observer

Photo by Chris Almeida

Today Alabaster DePlume shares a new single, “Greek Honey Slick,” featuring drummer Tom Skinner (The Smile, Sons of Kemet), the second offering from his forthcoming album Come With Fierce Grace (out September 8th on International Anthem).

In the context of the full album, “Greek Honey Slick” is in the middle of a four-track run of music that was originally created in a session where the saxophonist DePlume and drummer Skinner improvised together, alone as a duo. As the story goes, it was at Total Refreshment Centre studios in London in 2020, during DePlume’s several weeks-long recording session for what became his lauded 2022 album GOLD. It was supposed to be a full ensemble on this particular date, but all of the other musicians bailed, except for Skinner. DePlume did what he often does: he chose to embrace the circumstances, not knowing why. He and Skinner proceeded to record a bunch of music that didn’t make sense to be released as part of GOLD, but turned out to be a perfect fit for Come With Fierce Grace.

Reflecting on his choice to embrace the unplanned duo session with Skinner, DePlume says:

“Before I recorded GOLD, I dropped an enormous metal tin of beautiful Greek honey on my studio floor. Heart-broken, I gathered it into my hands to be disposed of, which took ages. But I chose to embrace this too - not knowing why. And it turned out that it was a blessing for the making of that specific album (though I won’t say why, just now). The key thing for me is: embracing what is, without demanding to know why. Abundance and how it is, and how it can appear, and made welcome.”

And Tom Skinner adds: 

“I don’t remember much about the details of the session at all, other than that it was a welcome oasis of spontaneous music-making in what had become an otherwise arid and disheartening year. A glorious and joyous exploration of sound in time.”

To round out the sound on “Greek Honey Slick,” DePlume added synth and bass guitar, overdubbing himself over his saxophone & drumkit improvisations with Skinner, almost two years after the initial session. The resulting work is a borderline club banger – “Greek Honey Slick” is definitely one of the more hype moments on the generally subdued, lilting and placid Come With Fierce Grace.

Following a run of European shows opening for Bon Iver, Alabaster’s tour dates continue to expand - with a whole month of shows spanning the United States. Full list of shows below.

ABOUT THE RECORD

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 entirely 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, Falle Nioke, and Donna Thompson. Though 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.”

Photo by Chris Almeida

RELEASE CALENDAR
Tuesday June 27th - album announce + first single “Did You Know”
Thursday July 27th - second single “Greek Honey Slick”
Thursday August 17th - third single “Naked Like Water”
Friday, September 8 - LP Street

UK & EU DATES
5 Aug 2023 - Eigg, Scotland @ Howlin' Fling - Tickets
11 Aug 2023 - Dorset, UK @ We Out Here - Tickets
19 Aug 2023 - Buckinghamshire, UK @ Stowaway - Tickets
20 Aug 2023 - Brecon Beacons, Wales @ GreenMan - Tickets
7-Nov-2023 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club 
8-Nov-2023 - Manchester, UK @ Band On The Wall
9-Nov-2023 - Nottingham, UK @ Strange Brew
10-Nov-2023 - London, UK @ KOKO, Pitchfork Music Festival
11-Nov-2023 - Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
12-Nov-2023 - Brighton, UK @ Chalk

US DATES
26 Aug 2023 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Getty - Tickets
27 Aug 2023 - Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon - Tickets
29 Aug 2023 - San Diego, CA @ Whistle Stop -Tickets
30 Aug 2023 - Ojai, CA @ Deer Lodge - Tickets
1 Sep 2023 - Modesto, CA @ The Speakeasy at Greens on Tenth - Tickets
2 Sep 2023 - San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
3 Sep 2023 - Santa Cruz, CA @ Kuumbawa Jazz Center
5 Sep 2023 - Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall - Tickets
6 Sep 2023 - Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
8 Sep 2023 - Boise, ID @ Neurolux - Tickets
10 Sep 2023 - Denver, CO @ Ophelia's
15 Sep 2023 - Chicago, IL @ Co-Prosperity - Tickets
16 Sep 2023 - Chicago, IL @ Co-Prosperity - Tickets
17 Sep 2023 - Toronto, ON @ Rivoli - Tickets
18 Sep 2023 - Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz - Tickets
20 Sep 2023 - New Orleans, LA @ Music Box Village
22 Sep 2023 - Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere Hall - Tickets

RELEASE CALENDAR

Tuesday June 27th - album announce + first single “Did You Know” (featuring Momoko Gill)
Thursday July 27th - second single “Greek Honey Slick” (featuring Tom Skinner)
Thursday August 17th - third single “Naked Like Water” (featuring Donna Thompson)
Friday, September 8 - album release date