Album Review: Alabaster DePlume, Gold

By the time Guinean polymath Falle Nioke ambles in and takes the mic on ‘Again’, you feel that you’ve been privy to a fantastic guerrilla gig blasting away in your front room. There is a spirit of jamboree throbbing powerfully across Gold, buttressed by the whooping and hollering of the audience.

Before Alabaster DePlume cut this double album across two weeks at Hackney’s Total Refreshment Centre, he laid down some rules. First, there must be a different set of musicians each day. Secondly, musicians will not rehearse, but rather will depend on one another to obtain maximum vibe. Finally, there must be no listening back to sessions after recording.

Daredevil rules they may be, but DePlume provides a convincing manifesto on ‘I Will Not Be Safe’: “Courage is not safe / I will not choose cynicism or take it up on its delicious, bitter offer.” The result is a defiantly original album with rollicking incantations ‘(Fucking Let Them)’, that tap into a dreamlike state of consciousness, wherein musicians bring a stew of instruments – flickering double bass, spitting sax, downy snare – to an impressive simmer beneath. A monumental achievement.

7/10