IA11 Edition of ALABASTER DEPLUME's To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 out December 5th // DePlume tours EU this fall in support of A Blade...
Alabaster DePlume
To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1
(IA11 Edition)
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 album's release, was most known to his 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 led full-throated shout-alongs 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.
To Cy & Lee was also the first document of an ongoing collaboration between DePlume and IARC, which has already yielded the albums GOLD (2022), Come With Fierce Grace (2023), and A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole (2025), in addition to sundry singles and EPs. The depth of partnership between DePlume and our crew that has developed since To Cy & Lee, coupled with the endlessly quenching spiritual comforts the album continues to provide, makes it an absolute essential of the International Anthem catalog and a proud choice for the final three editions of the IA11 series.
In record stores worldwide on December 5th, the IA11 Edition of To Cy and Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 comes on classic black 140-gram vinyl LP inside a heavyweight reverse-board jacket, with a 12-page 11x11" insert booklet (including previously unpublished photos and new liner notes by DePlume himself), IARC 2025 obi strip and printed poly-lined inner sleeve. Pressed at Pallas in Germany, with new lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST.
11 of 11
@ Hungry Brain Chicago
In addition to the IA11 Edition releases, as part of our year long IA11 effort (celebrating the 11th year of International Anthem), we have been proud to present a special event series in Chicago, focusing on a different album from our catalog on the last Monday of every month across 2025 at the Hungry Brain. All the 11 of 11 events have all featured a deep listening of the latest IA11 Edition release, followed by a small group of musicians performing an interpretation of that album.
For the next edition, Monday October 27th, we’ll be revisiting Alabaster DePlume’s To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol 1 (IA11 Edition) with a deep listening of the full album.
But unlike the usual 11 of 11 program, where musicians perform after the listening… For this one, we're doing something different. Attendees of the October 27th event will be invited to join us in a whistle pack assembly line (inspired by Belmont Cragin United). Our goal is to churn out hundreds of bundles with basic tools and educational materials about protecting communities against I*C*E, which we’ll take to distribution points around the city.
Tickets are $15-$20. Friends around the world who would like to support this effort: we encourage you to buy a ticket to this event as well, because 100% of ticket income will be sent to Organized Communities Against Deportations to assist their ongoing support of migrant families.
Even if you can't be there in person, if you buy a ticket for this event we'll enter your name into a raffle. Winners will get a rare Alabaster DePlume item: either one of two copies of Alabaster's limited edition poetry book Looking For My Value: A Prologue to A Blade (generously donated by David Penn), or one of several copies of Alabaster's long OOP Salty Road Dogs Victory Anthem flexi disc.
Please join us as we try to do our best against the inhuman forces terrorizing the people of Chicago.
(( photo by Andrea Terzuoli ))
Alabaster DePlume
on tour
Alabaster DePlume continues to tour in support of his recently-released, critically-acclaimed album A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, traversing Europe in a run of dates across fall 2025. Tickets go on sale this Friday October 24 at 9am local time.
October 21, 2025 – Madrid, Spain @ Sala Villanos
October 22, 2025 – Barcelona, Spain @ La Nau
October 29, 2025 – Berlin, Germany @ 90 mil
October 25, 2025 – Bologna, Italy @ Locomotiv Club
October 30, 2025 – Springe, Germany @ Gut-Bennigsen
October 31, 2025 – Hamburg, Germany @ ÜBERJAZZ Festival
November 1, 2025 – Schorndorf, Germany @ Club Manufaktur
November 2, 2025 – Frankfurt am Main, Germany @ Brotfabrik
November 3, 2025 – Luxembourg City, Luxembourg @ Rotondes
November 5, 2025 – Brussels, Belgium @ Listen! Festival
November 7, 2025 – Utrecht, Netherlands @ Le Guess Who?
November 8, 2025 – Da Groningen, Netherlands @ Rockit Festival
January 29, 2026 – Rouen, France @ Le 106
February 1, 2026 - Brest, France @ La Vauban
February 18, 2026 - Bern, Switzerland @ Bee-Flat
February 19, 2026 - Zurich, Switzerland @ Moods
Alabaster DePlume
A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole
LP/CD/Digi album
out March 7th, 2025
"Stunning...you can’t argue with DePlume’s outstanding melodies."
The Guardian
"Weaves a tapestry of sounds — spiritual jazz, folk, classical, and beyond — into a potent missive of grace."
FLOOD
“The Mancunian saxophonist and Jujitsuka dusts himself down and fires up the big strings for an album of fighting songs with healing sounds.”
The Quietus
“Conjuring chamber-based folk/ jazz collages with a bespoke philosophical twist .. assiduously pushing the boundaries.”
MOJO
“Traversing folk-jazz and elegantly-rendered orchestral suites, atmosphere and allegory, DePlume looks inward and confronts his own struggles.”
Clash
“His singing is murmured, pressurized, prayerful. His self-taught sax is his most distinctive voice, though, at times a shivering, Arabic thing like a quaking ghost, or sinuously sensual and serenely beautiful.”
UNCUT
"A simple yet beautifully executed reminder to reflect, find healing and resist vanity."
The Skinny
“Alabaster DePlume is unlike any artist of today.”
glide MAGAZINE
“DePlume är en sant originell artist i en samtid där det blivit en skriande bristvara.”
DAGEN NYHETER
"Die Zeiten sind hart und Alabaster strebt nach Heilung. Die Musik ist dabei aber nie lieblich-beliebig. In der Ruhe liegt der Krach des Aufruhrs."
radioeins
"Es geht um geistige Heilung und den Weg dorthin – den eigenen Schmerz zu akzeptieren, statt ihn zu bekämpfen. Auf dem Album folgt die Form dem Inhalt. Besser geht’s nicht."
HHV Mag
"These compositions not only represent some of the album’s most beautiful moments, but also some of Fairbairn’s most powerful work to date."
now then
“It’s a rare gift to make an instrument speak, rarer to make it communicate such a vital truth…”
Pitchfork
Across A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, DePlume’s reflections on healing, dignity, and struggle are communicated through a stirring assemblage of disparate musics: ghostly and ancient folk melodies, groove-anchored maelstroms of swirling folk-jazz, elegant string arrangements that strike a midpoint between Ravel and Gainsbourg (courtesy of Macie Stewart), disembodied voices reconfiguring into the shape of a post-modern Greek chorus, noir atmosphere, and allegoric, troubadouric song. Throughout, DePlume's intimate, confessional croon (a la Donovan or Devendra Banhart) and vibrato-laced tenor saxophone playing (a la Getatchew Mekurya) convey, with a startling humanistic touch, everything from dejected fragility to resolute strength.
Thank You, My Pain
London Film Screenings
Close-Up Cinema
97 Sclater Street London E1 6HR UK
November 20, 6:30pm | November 21, 6:00pm | November 22, 8:30pm
London-based filmmaker Rebecca Salvadori presents Thank You, My Pain, a poetic exploration of friendship, music, and artistic collaboration.
Salvadori began filming musician Alabaster DePlume in 2018 during her time at Total Refreshment Centre in London. Their collaboration deepened when Salvadori filmed DePlume at the Colour Factory in 2021. He later invited her to document his 2023 KOKO performance at Pitchfork Music Festival, create the artwork for his 2025 album A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, and direct a music video for the album's lead track "Oh My Actual Days."
Salvadori’s work documents an ongoing archive of relationships between musicians and artists — a body of portraits rooted in exchange, trust, and presence. Thank You, My Pain is both part of this archive and a personal manifesto: a deeply subjective film that honors the power of showing up for one another.
The London premiere screenings at Close-Up Cinema are presented by Ensemble Music, a new company run by Rob(ert) Farhat. All screenings will be followed by conversation with Salvadori and DePlume.
(( photo by Alexander Massek ))
...about Alabaster DePlume...
Alabaster DePlume often asks a simple question: what do people need? In his work, at his shows, in his collaborations, the Mancunian singer-saxophonist and poet-philosopher poses this to the people around him. What are people looking for? In recent years, the same reply kept coming up: healing, healing, people need healing. But why, and what does it mean to heal, especially in a world where the very idea is often commodified and sold as a luxury? If people were coming to his music for something so mysterious, he ought to figure it out. Maybe he ought to try some healing himself.
“For a long time, I've always tried to give responsibility for my value to someone else,” DePlume said on a recent phone call. It seemed he’d become so caught up in the work of forging connections, and thinking about the effects of his work on others, that he’d lost a sense of himself. “I was working on that,” he explained.
This experiment in healing included slowing down, reading, reflecting, and even taking up the practice of jiu-jitsu. DePlume wrote poetry, too, including the book Looking For My Value: A Prologue to A Blade, seventy pages of verse rooted in its title’s great search, in finding strength of self within a community, alongside meditations on the paradox of the blade. “The blade, that divides, is whole,” he writes in the introduction. “Healing is the forming of a whole, and a whole is singular, more itself, as in more one, as in more alone.” A blade could be used to attack, to shave, to sever, but it could also be used to cut oneself loose — in the process of getting free.
“What's the opposite of sleep? It’s trying to sleep,” he says. “And so what's the opposite of looking for my value? It is knowing my value. It simply is there. My dignity is there. I don't need anyone else to know my dignity, or me, to know it. I know it first. I can't seek it from another. I stand for it.”
Selections from the poetry book ultimately became the lyrics across half of the tracks on A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, DePlume’s latest full-length work: eleven songs of agency and survival and presence; of confronting life’s pains rather than trying to avoid them; of banishing escapism. In sum, it documents his learning of the fact that dignity and self-determination are prerequisites for becoming whole, which is to say, for healing. If a blade were broken it would not serve its purpose; it must be unbroken, it must be whole, to be of use.
In the Alabaster DePlume songbook, the celestial ease of his instrumental tracks can sometimes feel like a trojan horse for a voice that is disarmingly honest about the heaviness of existence.
