ALABASTER DEPLUME 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Spoken word artist and saxophonist Alabaster De Plum has been involved with some fantastic album projects in recent years such as his To Cty & Lee solo album and a collab with Danalogue - a producer best-known for his work with Snapped Ankles and the Comet is Coming - on Total Refreshment Centre. Now he lands on Chicago's revered International Anthem with Gold, which here is presented as a deluxe version on heavyweight gatefold. It's a tender album that "celebrates the spirit of being unconventional" and does so well.

Review: Angus Fairbairn may split his time between London and Manchester, but his music as Alabaster dePlume speaks to a kind of old-world romanticism that takes him out of time and place. Affiliated with Total Refreshment Centre, this mightily talented artist unfurls the kind of strikingly fresh twist on jazz we've come to expect from the London-based studios. His saxophone flutters in a most unusual of ways, while around it the mood and mode varies from Americana wooze to African spiritual and on to Middle Eastern mysticism. This is music of the Earth undoubtedly, but it celebrates the ability of distinct cultures to transcend the trappings of terra firma through song.