The Up Late series of shows at The Hub in Edinburgh* is one of my favourite groupings of the International Festival, showcasing the best in contemporary international and classical artistry, and often avant-garde experimentation. Kicking off the series this year is English saxophonist and spoken-word poet Gus Fairbairn, aka Alabaster DePlume. He’s billed as a musical maverick who fuses atmospheric and raw improvisation with political passions, and yes, that’s borne-out by tonight’s performance, but doesn’t seem adequate in description when seen in the flesh – it’s more about the weaving of worlds and words, nourishing and enveloping.
A glance at the words I scribbled in the first few minutes of the performance: elemental, intense, wide-eyed, humorous, humane, open-throated, brooding. luxuriant, hypnotic. You see what I mean.
Though he and his band (sax, voice, bass guitar and drums) left the Rhineland just that morning, DePlume admits in one of his extended talks between pieces that Edinburgh is territory for him to discover: ‘You have come to see me, and I have come to see you!’ he says, going-on to list, with a kind of wide-eyed wonder, the things which and people whom he loves, connected with tonight’s performance. Delivered in a disarmingly raw semi-incantation, these monologues are unsettling a little to begin with, but they’re charming, poetic and genuine, and personally-invested to full measure. Personal and collective combine in pithy maxims: ‘Our time here is made of who we are’, ‘If in doubt, yes‘, and ‘Let’s make way for the songs to come through’. I doubt if Oasis, performing at the same time a couple of miles away, could put it so beautifully.
The material centres around the critically-acclaimed album A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, released in March this year, sharing his themes of agency of music in confronting life’s pains. His albums have been created through spontaneous collaboration, with true improvisation encouraged by enforcing limited practice time, and no listening-back to sessions after recording, allowing raw, eclectic creativity to occlude critical appraisal.
Combined with eerie legato backing vocals by Mikey Kenney, Rozi Plain’s beautifully-uncomplicated bass ostinatos (Rozi fronts her own band and plays bass in This Is The Kit) and Scottish drummer Seb Rochford’s understated playing, the songs are largely pentatonic, earthy and circular, with sharpening and augmentations that give the lead melodies a slightly phrygian feel. Alabaster’s tone, from his unpolished sax, is breathy and tremulous, with a purity of expression that’s enhanced by his occasional singing in unison through the instrument. His spoken-word sections, delivered toward the lofty vaulted ceiling, even reference the pentatonic and looping structure of his pieces: he steps forward and back in concentration, and when the song withdraws, always beautifully, he tends to leap boyishly into the air, maybe in return for the transport the past few minutes have given him, and all of us.
If his alias, and performance, are something of a persona – which of course is fine – the music and monologues are so charged with personality that an authentic and personal honesty will emerge – after all, the theme of this year’s Festival is The Truth We Seek. The transmitted waves of calm are balanced with a heartfelt and justified polemic on Israel’s treatment of its Gazan neighbours, which that very day had moved beyond bombardment and displacement, to genocide and near-erasure, following its cabinet’s approval of an entire takeover of Gaza. One of the pieces features ambient excerpts of sound from a Ramallah marketplace, and unfavourable reference is made to Festival sponsor Baillie Gifford. If this is the truth we seek, this is what he, and we, have found.
*A quick word about The Hub: formerly the Highland Tolbooth Kirk, the Festival’s home-base houses as agreeable a performance space as you can find – relaxed ambience, open seating (sofas, beanbags) space for drinks (in proper glasses), and subtle all-round sound reinforcement.
