Alabaster DePlume: A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole review

The Guardian

06-03-2025

Alabaster DePlume's seventh album comes with a statement of purpose. 'What is it FOR?' asks the accompanying blurb, written by the artist, born Angus Fairbairn. 'To inspire and facilitate our independent healing … Recently I told everyone to 'go forward in the courage of your love' and 'be brazen like a baby'. Following this incitement to boldness it is only fair that I offer a perspective on healing whatever comes as a result.'
There is more – a lot more, including a poem – but you get the gist. An album arriving with an explicit mission statement is an unusual occurrence, but to anyone familiar with Fairbairn and his work, the obvious response is: well, of course it does. The only variable is whether you say that in a tone of delight or with a roll of the eyes. Since his 2020 breakthrough with the soothing To Cy and Lee: Instrumentals Vol 1, the saxophonist – known for his tremulous, vibrato-heavy style – and spoken-word artist has carved out a unique small space, so specific that it's almost bound to be divisive.
There are those who find his whole shtick delightful and inspiring, who would argue that it's not a shtick at all, merely the unguarded expression of an open-hearted personality: refreshing in a world of irony and artifice. Equally, there are sceptics, those for whom everything from his wacky stage name to his mission statements to the interviews that occasionally begin with him thanking the journalist for merely existing, carry the tang of affectation; for whom his words often sound remarkably like something you might see on a poster for sale on Etsy: 'We can only forgive each other once we forgive ourselves.'
There are brief moments during A Blade … where you concede the latter faction might have a point. Admittedly an outlier, the acoustic guitar-driven Invincibility recalls the flower-power era's self-styled 'humble minstrel' Donovan at his most whimsical, not a reference one reaches for often in 2025. Fairbairn's vocals, meanwhile, are an acquired taste – so much so that you find yourself wondering if To Cy and Lee: Instrumentals Vol 1 might not be his most successful album because of the instrumental aspect. On A Blade … they're delivered in a sprechgesang that draws equally on time-honoured hepcat declaiming, rap and performance poetry, and occasionally bring to mind not Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the company of Stan Getz, but Faithless's late frontman Maxi Jazz. But they occupy less than half the album, and when they do appear they're usually thickly framed with instrumental passages that are diverting enough.
On closer That Was My Garden, the vocals are over almost before the track has begun, leaving room for a lengthy passage that slowly changes its mood from scrabbling and tentative to striding and triumphant. Even Invincibility shifts away from its initial singer-songwriter style into an intoxicating eddy of Middle Eastern-influenced strings that may have its roots in the period Fairbairn spent in Palestine – his 2024 EP Cremisan: Prologue to a Blade featured two tracks recorded in Bethlehem.
And therein lies the rub: Fairbairn's divisiveness is rendered beside the point in the face of the music he makes. It's tempting to say that his greatest skill lies not in his vocals nor his trademark sax playing, but as a writer of melodies: entirely gorgeous, cyclical tunes that rise and fall in intensity. His saxophone carries them, but is regularly and very effectively doubled with wordless vocals or strings, testament to the simpatico skills of arranger Macie Stewart.
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As opener Oh My Actual Days ebbs and flows, or Fairbairn's sax soars over a backing that views jazz through the lens of dub reggae on Salty Road Dogs Victory Anthem, it's hard not to think that even the most cynical would feel ambushed by what they're hearing. At heart, A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole is packed with beautiful music – the string-laden backing of Form a V that tilts gently in the direction of reggae and lusciously upholstered soul; the gently insistent waltz-time motion of Who Are You Telling, Gus. It's music that seems to affect listeners emotionally far more effectively than the words. You could take that as a failing, but it isn't: after all, that's what music is for.
Listen to tracks from A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole on Apple Music or listen on Spotify
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