Alabaster DePlume - Visit Croatia

Prominently sampled on Bon Iver’s recent track “PDLIF,” “Visit Croatia” is the title track from a new mini EP by Manchester-born, London-based bandleader, composer, saxophonist, activist and orator Angus Fairbairn, aka Alabaster DePlume. It’s taken from the album To Cy & Lee Instrumentals Vol. 1 (available on vinyl and via digital services now) which was released to tremendous acclaim in February.

“One day, I realized I was waiting for someone to give me permission to make this,” says Alabaster of “Visit Croatia.” “And at the same time, I realized – no-one could ever give me permission to make this. Not because they thought it was a bad thing. But because they didn't know what it was. I can’t give you permission to do your awesome s**t. But someone else on this earth can. And I don’t mean Cy & Lee, and I don’t mean Bernie Sanders, and I don’t mean Karen either.”

Of the mini EP’s two previously unreleased tracks, “The Good Wine” and “Black Drifts,” Alabaster writes: “They are two of the pieces prepared around the release ‘Peach’. Created in (optional, pre-lockdown) isolation, with the aim of celebrating human connections through the sheer act of yearning for them. I love music, and words and performance, but it will never be as good as people. So, if I’m going to get my work done, I must sometimes go away from people. In the middle of a heavy gigging schedule I chose to take two cassette recorders somewhere I could be unreachable, for a week. I made many things there, including these tunes. It was winter. I chopped firewood. A chinook flew over my head. I gradually came to trust myself, to be sincere.”