Alabaster DePlume - Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade

This new EP, Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade features two tracks recorded in Palestine with local musicians, pianist Sami El Enani and Qanoun player Laith Albandak, and a third track inspired by the experience of living in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

It features three deeply personal and evocative new tracks, recorded in locations of profound importance. Each piece serves as a testament to the power of collaboration and the importance of place in shaping the artistic process.

The EP’s first two tracks, “Honeycomb” and “Cremisan,” were recorded in the experimental arts, music and architecture space The Wonder Cabinet in Bethlehem, Palestine, during DePlume’s ‘Sounds Of Places’ residency. The opening track, the wintry and elegiac “Honeycomb,” is a somber duet recorded with pianist Sami El Enani.

“Cremisan” — recorded in the final moments of a day-long non-stop performance put on by Radio alHara and Wonder Cabinet on June 1, 2024, that featured a robust array of local artists and musicians — finds DePlume’s wavering saxophone leads playing against featured artist Laith Albandak’s steadfast Qanoun in a call and response that gestures at both grief and resilience. The team planned and delivered this event as “a cry from the Cremisan Valley (Bethlehem, Palestine) to Rafah (Gaza),” and what you hear is its conclusion.

The EP concludes with “Gifts Of Olive,” a solemn melody that references Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die.”

DePlume shares: “To set you up for what’s coming I’ve layered up these compositions in private, and with friends. It’s a prologue to what we’re bringing next. It ushers it in. I went towards things I feared, to be in the places where this music has come from. Places in the world and in myself, where dignity and sovereignty has its role in the work of healing.”