Photo: Sofia Lambrou

There’s wonderful news from ingenious and thought-provoking spoken word artist, bandleader, composer, saxophonist and activist Alabaster DePlume, who has just unveiled a new digital EP titled Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade, part of an upcoming larger project, Prologue To A Blade, which will also be ccompanied by his debut poetry book, Looking For My Value: Prologue To A Blade. The EP features two tracks recorded in Bethlehem, Palestine with local musicians, pianist Sami El Enani and Qanoun player Laith Albandak, and a third track, ‘Gifts Of Olive’, which references Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die”. DePlume comments:

“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.”

Head over to DePlume’s bandcamp to grab Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade EP, and for a taster of it, here’s the utterly compelling and beguiling opening track ‘Honeycomb’ featuring Sami El Enani.