ALABASTER DEPLUME - Dear Children Of Our Children, I Knew : Epilogue

“Dear Children Of Our Children, I Knew : Epilogue” is, in some ways, a brief twenty-six-minute compendium of the pagan spirituality found on the last album “A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole”, but the new project by Alabaster DePlume is far more than a simple collection of five tracks recorded during the 2025 American tour.
The English saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist's new record grows out of the strong rapport forged on stage between DePlume and his two travelling companions, Shahzad Ismaily (bass) and Tcheser Holmes (drums). The intense sonic substance of these five instrumental pieces isn't confined to purely musical concerns. Just look at the cover art to pick up on powerful socio-political signals: the artwork, created using the wheatpaste technique, is the work of a 13-year-old boy from Gaza, a message reinforced by the dedication on the cover to one of the many martyrs of the war, Obaida Ahmed al-Qiram.

A master of the poetics of pain, Alabaster DePlume scatters further signs of unease and suffering throughout the record. The latest single “Glass” isn't just one of the project's most solemn and evocative moments, but also the nodal point of a profound reflection the musician has distilled into a few words: “Overheated sand melts. It becomes clear, transparent. As it hardens, it becomes glass. We shatter the glass, and it breaks into splinters. And yet it still manages to shine, in a way. They're transparent. How can a human being endure extreme, brutal punishment, and yet still shine, still be transparent, clear, still refract the light?”

The bond between DePlume's personal avant-jazz semantic strategies and the fate of the Palestinian people is further encapsulated in recordings made in Bethlehem, where the only protagonists are children, whose voices sound increasingly like a last cry for help (“What Did The Child Say/ Facing Reality”) to which the world seems deaf and indifferent.

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24/06/2026