Alabaster Deplume is the performing name of Angus Fairbairn, an English jazz musician, saxophonist, spoken word poet, composer and activist from Manchester.

Career

He works across jazz, experimental music, folk and spoken word, and he performs internationally, often bringing theatrical spoken-word into music settings and music into spoken-word performances. While living in London, he works at the Total Refreshment Centre and begins staging monthly improvisational events under the name Peach, using different musicians and combining jazz and spoken word poetry.

He releases Peach through Debt Records in October 2015. In February 2020 he releases the instrumental album To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1, which becomes his biggest commercial success at that point and a major breakthrough in his career. In April 2022 he releases Gold – Go Forward in the Courage of Your Love, and in 2023 he releases “Come with Fierce Grace”.

Collaborations and other projects

His multidisciplinary project The Jester involves 12 musicians and 24 visual artists from two cities, and is funded internationally through crowd-sourcing. He also writes and performs theatre with the Dublin circus aerial troupe PaperDolls. As a saxophonist, he appears with the Manchester rhythm and blues group Honeyfeet and with singer Liz Green, among others.