October 30, 2025
ALABASTER DEPLUME
+ LOS SARA FONTAN
+ LOS SARA FONTAN
Doors open at 7 pm, concert starts at 8 pm
Gus Fairbairn, aka Alabaster DePlume, has a pocketful of phrases that he uses all the time whether he’s walking down the street or holding court with musicians and an audience. For a long time the Mancunian would tell anyone who’d listen that they were doing very well. More recently, it’s another phrase which has a similar effect and which belies his unwavering commitment to personal vulnerability and collective politics: “Don’t forget you’re precious.”
A process that is people-first not product-first ensures that the music is unique; often gem-like. Alabaster DePlume’s songs are built on sonorous circular melodies and luminous tones that transmit calmness and generosity in warm waves – unless they’re raging against complacency and the everyday inhumanity of end times capitalism. Most importantly, he brings a valuable transparency to his work. “This is what I’m really doing,” he says. “I want to talk about why I’m doing this, and how I’m doing this.
“[DePlume] delivers a serene reminder of what matters most” – Pitchfork
“DePlume is a fixture on the London avant-jazz scene whose greatest value is openness” – NPR
“He’s a garrulous, heart-on-sleeve rabble-rouser, an anti-cynic keen to reduce the fourth wall to rubble.” – The Observer
“An incredibly unique record. Every second of the precious hour and seven minutes is dedicated to vulnerability and collective politics” – CLASH
Los Sara Fontan choose to explore the irrational, breaking away from classical modes of musical production and reproduction. Since ancient Greece, instrumental music has been feared for its ability to lead listeners into unrestrained, uncontrollable flights of imagination.
Violin, pedals, synthesizers , drums, triggers, pads, cowbells, and metal sheets make up the sonic arsenal of Los Sara Fontan. The duo, formed by Sara Fontan and Edi Pou, bases its creative process on the analog and digital manipulation of acoustic sound. Their practice is rooted in improvisation, the use of error as opportunity, and the physicality of the body and its sonic extensions as a source of raw material. Their music is open source: they compose alongside other artists and constantly rework their own creations, opening them to collective and interdisciplinary experimentation.
A fearless mix of influences—as disparate as classical music, hardcore punk, noise, IDM, or electroacoustic sound—serves as fuel for the development of their own language. This is pursued through a process of constant questioning of music’s standard routines: how to structure a song, how to conceive a live performance, how to exist within a music industry marked by individualism and the inertia of standardization. For the first five years of their career, they deliberately avoided recording albums—a militant decision to resist conventional production cycles.
Their true stage is the live performance: physical, passionate, punk, ever-evolving and open to the environment. Together, they create minimalist oases, noise- drenched garages, beaches where time slows down, impenetrable walls of sound, beats for a futuristic odd-time rapper, romantic cliffs, underwater acrobatics, hedonistic discotheques, fragrant sonic gardens… They invite the listener to let their imagination run free.
Sara uses the violin and keyboard as her base, transforming them through electroacoustic processes to craft a diverse palette of sounds and evoke multiple sonic natures. Beside her, Edi Pou (also half of ZA!, a cornerstone of the European underground) takes on the challenge of turning percussion into melody, stretching dynamics from the minuscule to the epic, and breaking away from the Western conventions of traditional drumming.
“(…) Spanish duo Los Sara Fontan played a mesmerising and utterly bewildering set of brilliant music that is nigh on impossible to describe. I can certainly tell you it changed constantly for an hour, the shifts in tempo and often texture driven by the seemingly Promethean percussion, with violin and God knows what amalgamation of electronic gadgetry adding melodic and tonal elements. It was – and excuse my
language here – fucking wild.” Louder than War (UK,May 2025)
Interviews:
