Last year, Alabaster DePlume released GOLD – Go Forward in the Courage of Your Love on the highly acclaimed Chicacgo-based Internation Anthem label. It was a generous 19-track spiritual jazz album that, for me, just hit the sweet spot. Widely acclaimed as one of the best jazz albums of 2022, it’s an album I’m still finding new depths to. Alongside his serene musing saxophone, he was accompanied by a community of like-minded progressive talents that included Rozi Plain, Momoko Gill, Conrad Singh, Hannah Miller (Moulettes) and Paddy Steer, once described as a Mancunian Moon Dog by The Quietus.
During the gruelling creative tour of that album, this new single, ‘Salty Road Dogs Victory Anthem‘, was composed and recorded. A celebration of joyful communal music, he is joined by his live band (Rozi Plain, Momoko Gill and Conrad Singh, “one of the most creative yet resilient groups I’ve put together”).
This celebratory offering will form one half of a flexi disc single to be released in May of this year.
Alabaster, in his own words, says: “Even this very second, passing your eyes over these words, is a victory. Breathing, you are victorious. Childishly standing with my flag and my anthem of “I’m alive”, I’m victorious. See inside, how you have your own permission, to be. Celebrated or not by others, in one moment, always, or never. You know you are here, and you know this is a victory. We can always be more ourselves, and we can always be less so. But there is no ceremony we must wait for, no test, no judgement, before we can sing our victory anthem.”
Salty Road Dogs Victory Anthem is available as a digital single now via International Anthem: https://international-anthem.lnk.to/SaltyRoadDogsVictoryAnthem
The B-side, ‘Child Playing in the Forbidden Ruins’, is a result of Alabaster’s ‘live development’ recording style from the session. Like the laughter captured in the opening of side A, this composition is a consequence of the groups’ relationship to music and each other. “Looking inward, we can meet sometimes with parts of ourselves that are in ruins and seemingly forbidden. But upon giving ourselves agency to be who we are, we can find ourselves like naughty children who have given ourselves permission and sneaked into those forbidden places to find what’s there.”
“Salty Road Dogs Victory Anthem” is out on digital single release today. The 7” flexi disc + “Child Playing In Forbidden Ruins” digital single release will be released on May 19th.
TOUR DATES
April 28 – La Triennale di Milano, Italy
May 12 – Jazz, Berlin, Germany
May 24 – The Cornish Bank, Falmouth, UK
May 27 – Jazz à Liège, Liège, Belgium
Jun 10 – Waking Life, Crato, Portugal
July 7 – North Sea Jazz Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands
July 14 – Boomtown, Ghent, Belgium
July 15 – Paris Jazz, France
August 8 – Howling Festival, Eigg, Scotland
August 11 – We Out Here, Wimborne St Giles, UK
August 19 – Stowaway Festival, Buckingham, UK
August 20 – Greenman Festival, UK