Alabaster Deplume - A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole

A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole finds Alabaster DePlume still doing what he's always done best, treating a saxophone and a few whispered words like they're capable of actual healing.

Angus Fairbairn took his stage name from a mishearing of a stranger's insult shouted from a passing car, which tells you most of what you need to know about his relationship with taking himself too seriously while still meaning every word. Based out of London's Total Refreshment Centre since 2015, he built a genuinely singular sound across records like Gold, spiritual jazz threaded with spoken word mantras, creaky chamber arrangements, and a kind of English whimsy that somehow never undercuts the sincerity underneath it. This 2025 album for International Anthem keeps that formula intact while sharpening the emotional directness even further, titles alone reading like small affirmations you'd want taped to a mirror.

Thank You My Pain does exactly what it says, gratitude extended toward something most records only complain about. Invincibility carries the record's most quietly triumphant horn work, and Prayer for My Sovereign Dignity is as close as DePlume gets to a genuine mission statement, spoken word and saxophone working as one instrument rather than two. That Was My Garden closes the album on something tender and specific, memory rendered as melody.

Eleven tracks that treat vulnerability as strength rather than a confession. Few musicians make sincerity sound this unforced.