Posted by Matthew Waldman, the artist, poet, designer, and educator behind BUTCHIE, channels decades of personal reflection and creative exploration into ‘ALABASTER,’ an electronic, disco, and psychedelic track inspired by a memory from New York nightlife that unfolds into a meditation on desire, distance, and hidden identity.
The song is rooted in Waldman’s adolescence, when he began frequenting clubs in New York at the age of fifteen. During those nights, he repeatedly noticed a young man his own age who usually appeared alone and spoke very little. Waldman tried to approach him several times, but the boy kept his distance. With pale skin, black hair, and features reminiscent of a Greco-Roman statue, he left an image that Waldman would remember forever.
Years later, when they spoke again as adults, the young man had become a renowned designer and admitted that he had been deeply closeted at the time. The conversation offered a new perspective on those memories, revealing that what once appeared to be rejection was also shaped by the struggles of someone trying to protect a hidden part of his identity.
‘ALABASTER’ uses the distance between the two young men as the foundation for a broader analysis of appearance, silence, and the limits of perception. The title refers to the boy’s pale, marble-like presence but also suggests the coldness and emotional rigidity that Waldman associated with someone who seemed inaccessible.
Much of the song’s imagery comes from the hours Waldman spent in a late-night café after leaving clubs, sketching the boys he admired. Those drawings became the genesis of the poem that eventually grew into ‘ALABASTER,’ connecting the track to his long-standing practice as a poet and visual artist.
The combination of electronic music, disco, and psychedelia connects the song to its original nighttime atmosphere. The disco element evokes the ambiance of nightclubs, while the psychedelic dimension fits the hazy quality of an experience reconstructed through time. Through electronic textures, poetic imagery, and visual memories, ‘ALABASTER’ explores how distance can reshape the way we perceive moments from the past.