London-based instrumentalist and poet Alabaster Deplume’s new album came to fruition last year, after a fervent period of touring with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Tcheser Holmes in support of A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole. But the roots of the project date back to 2024, when Plume found himself in occupied Palestine working distantly, but in tandem with, the filmmaker Skyler Carrico. The collection of instrumentals incorporates field recordings that capture kids at play in the West Bank, and arrives alongside a 16mm film Carrico created in collaboration with a youth center for refugees. DePlume also uses wheatpaste posters created by a 13-year-old Gazan boy on its cover, inscribed with the phrase: “Dedicated to the mother of the martyr/witness Obaida Ahmed al-Qiram. May you rest in peace. From your student, the artist, Hasan Jawad Abudayyeh.”
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Thaiboy Digital, Swedm: Paradise [Bank of Star Sound System]
Thaiboy Digital lived in Thailand until he was 9, plenty long enough to call it home. But now, at 31, the Drain Gang rapper still maintains a certain cloak of invisibility in the country. As he told Pitchfork in a recent profile, he never gets recognized in Bangkok on the street, unlike in Stockholm, where he spent his adolescence becoming a cult star alongside Yung Lean, Bladee, ecco2k, and White Armor. In step with a move back to the place he spent his childhood in, Thaiboy Digital’s new record Paradise revisits the 2010s EDM of his teenage years with fresh eyes, genuine respect, and a brand new supergroup: Swedm, which links him with frequent Skrillex collaborator Varg2TM, Eurohead, and jamesjamesjames. “Other than all the lessons I learned, it was the music that I took from my dark ages,” he said.
