Alabaster DePlume - To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol 1

To Cy and Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 is a collection of Mancunian poet, singer, saxophonist and composer Alabaster DePlume’s simple and serenely intimate wordless adventures in melodic ennui. The collection properly introduced the world to a previously under-exposed, undeniably deep dimension of DePlume who, at the time of the its release, was most known to his (majorly British, majorly committed) followers for his music with words, his poetry, and his prowess as an impassioned orator. His performances (especially those that were part of his monthly Peach residency at Total Refreshment Centre in London) were becoming legendary for blurring the boundaries between secular sermon, theatrical monologue and song, as he turned audiences into experimental large ensembles and lead full-throated shout-a-longs to tunes like “Is It Enough” and “Be Nice To People” (both from his 2019 Lost Map album The Corner of a Sphere). The instrumental pieces that quietly buffered the big vocal moments of his recorded catalog, to that point, had mostly lived, quietly, in those buffers.

We’re not really sure what inspired DePlume to gather all of his recorded instrumentals, add a couple new ones, and invite International Anthem to collaborate on the campaign (we had only recently been getting to know him a little deeper, after our second trip to Total Refreshment Centre in the fall of 2018 when we recorded jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise). But what we do know is, not long after To Cy & Lee’s February 2020 release and the subsequent arrival of a global pandemic, those recordings went very far, very fast, taking on a new life as stay-at-home hits — the quiet catharsis we didn’t know we needed in the face of rapidly unfolding confusion, fear, and isolation. As the people of the world found themselves inside their small rooms, they began to search for smaller, more intentional sounds to fill them. These instrumentals carried the healing qualities we were after then, and still seek now. As we cite on the obi strip, the music is an antidote with seemingly ancient sonic characteristics, and a unique ability to embrace the core of our very being.