Later this spring, the London jazz saxophonist Alabaster DePlume will release Dear Children of Our Children, I Knew: Epilogue, the new EP that he recorded with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Tcheser Holmes. The record is framed as a call to action in defense of oppressed people, and it includes samples of kids playing and people living normal lives in the West Bank. The cover art shows wheatpaste posters of a drawing made by a 13-year-old boy from Gaza. And the latest track that DePlume has shared is called "Bringing Up The Nakba."
The Nakba was the original campaign of ethnic cleansing against Arab Palestinian people in 1947 and 1948, during the founding of the state of Israel. Israel still denies many of the atrocities committed then, just as it denies many of the atrocities that it commits today. The song, which follows previous single "It's Only Now Once (Elbit Systems Windowpane)," is a mournful, beautiful instrumental. Here's what DePlume says about it:
I wasn’t given permission to talk about 1948 before I started doing so. Yet I’ve learned about people I’m talking to, about myself, my history and the Nakba itself, by talking about it. You don’t need to be a scholar to speak the names of dark moments from the past. We won’t learn more about them by not mentioning them. If you wish to have someone's permission to speak about them, you have mine.
Listen below.
Dear Children of Our Children, I Knew: Epilogue is out 5/5 on International Anthem.
