CD Odyssey Disc 1452: Alela Diane

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey! This next review shows that any topic can be interesting if the art depicting it is good enough.

Disc 1452 is…. Cusp

Artist: Alela Diane

Year of Release: 2018

What’s up with the Cover?  It’s Alela Diane, looking majestically to the right. Diane is not royalty that I know of, but that’s the kind of profile that would look good on a coin. 

How I Came To Know It: I was already a fan, so I checked this record out. It didn’t grab me on my first listen, so I didn’t bother buying it. A year later, I was down in Oregon and found a copy in a record store there. On a whim, I decided to buy it anyway.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Alela Diane albums. I like them all, but competition is fierce, and “Cusp” comes in at #3. And this being the last of Alela Diane’s albums in my collection (for now) here is a recap:.

1. To Be Still: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 1000)
2. Alela Diane & Wild Divine: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1326)
3. Cusp: 4 stars (reviewed right here)

Ratings: 4 stars

Alela Diane would like you to know that she had a baby. Ordinarily, this is not my favourite topic (in fact, “babies” is probably my all-time least favourite topic). But when you can sing and write songs as well as Alela Diane, you get a pass.

Diane is a folk singer with one of those voices that dives right down into your soul. Hearing her is akin to finding yourself surrounded by elves in Lothlorien. It is magical and ethereal, yet so grounded in natural grace you feel calm and safe.

Her songs have a light lilt, like a birdsong, that makes you want to drift away on the wind. It is so pretty you want to tra-la-la along with her, but if you dare to try, you’ll quickly find the melodies only seem free and easy when she sings them. You can’t tell listening to Alela, but these songs are hard as hell to sing. She climbs up into a falsetto, then swoops down into chest voice then finds some middle ground before lifting off again. It’s powerful and fragile in equal measure; simultaneously the oak tree standing stolid in a storm, and a single leaf from that same tree, dancing in the wind.

Fortunately, you don’t have to listen to just anything, because “Cusp” is chock-full of Diane’s first-rate songwriting. They aren’t typical folk songs, mixing in pop progressions and folk traditions into something that catches your ear from the first notes, and then flits along with meandering purpose. There are times when I wished the melodies were more straightforward, but that was just me cranky that my broken old voice couldn’t keep up.

Diane had a child shortly before she released this album (her second) and as I alluded earlier, she wraps motherhood around every experience she has. “So Tired” captures the difficulty of balancing motherhood and touring, and “Never Easy” has Diane seeing her own mother in a better light, as she examines the mother-daughter relationship from the other side of the ledger. The best line in that song…

“Oh, my mama
I understand now
That you’ve always loved me more”

…leaves the “more” hang at the end of the line, trailing into the trill of piano and a wordlessly beautiful falsetto note. More than what? it seems to ask, letting that silence hang as the listener fills in the missing words, “more than anything.”

When she does use her words, they are too good effect. On “Song for Sandy” she describes her character, bereft of child, as “her heart hung heavy as a noose from a beam.” On “Ether & Wood” she draws you through a scene replete with sights, scents and nostalgia:

“I walked through the house we built
Saw the life I left behind
Ivory paint cracked and peeled on the walls
The hydrangea and red rose
Strangled by vines
I don’t live here anymore.”

“Ether & Wood” is the album’s best song, its melody breathing like the waters lapping at the edge of lake, dreamily evoking old houses, and the ghostly memories that haunt them. Even here Alela Diane takes it back to pregnancy, and the loss of self in the experience. As a devoted follower of the adage “cats not kids”, I wanted this to bother me. I even half-heartedly resolved to knock the album down a star.

Only I couldn’t do it. The songs are just too damned good. All that imagery of motherhood and pregnancy are so artfully thread through each tune, I found my complaints dying on my lips, as I swayed to the mysterious music of the elves. Pregnant ones to be sure, but elves all the same.

Best tracks: Threshold, Moves Us Blind, Song for Sandy, Ether & Wood, Wild Ceaseless Song

CD Odyssey Disc 1326: Alela Diane

I was slightly delayed getting this review written because I went out for dinner with friends last night. I sometimes think how much better or more prolific of a writer I would be if I just hunkered down in front of the keyboard more often.

That might be true, but while I only have so many chances to write words before I run out of days, I also only have so many dinners out with friends, and those moments are just as precious to me.

Disc 1326 is… Alela Diane & Wild Divine

Artist: Alela Diane

Year of Release: 2011

What’s up with the Cover? The traditional Giant Head cover – and the second straight Alela Diane review to feature a Giant Head – only this time in profile. Profile or straight on I am a fan of Alela Diane’s Giant Head.

How I Came to Know It: I discovered Alela Diane through a Jim Vorel article in Paste Magazine about obscure folk records (there’s a link to it back at Disc 1000). I then dug through her discography, but at the time I decided one album by her was enough.

When she released a new album (2018’s “Cusp”) I initially decided not to buy it, but later changed my mind after giving it a second listen. Then earlier this year I was in Portland and saw her “Wild Divine” record and on a whim, decided it also deserved a second listen. And so here I am – surprised to be won over yet again.

How It Stacks Up:  I have three Alela Diane albums, and all are good. I’d say I’m not getting anymore but recent experience has taught me not to be so hasty. For now, “Alela Diane & Wild Divine” comes in at #2, despite its unnecessary use of the ampersand where a word would have served just as ably.

Ratings: 4 stars

I'd like to call Alela Diane the Golden State Warbler. True, it isn't her nickname, but if you know your birds, it fits. The California-born folk musician sings like a songbird, trilling up and down through notes that few humans can hit, and fewer still can make musical.

Diane does both with ease, singing with what seems like abandon until you try to recreate it. Any such hubris on your part will almost certainly resemble the yowls of a strangled cat. It is then, mid-failure, that you will realize what an exceptional and inimitable vocal talent she is.

No caterwauling will be found on the tightly compacted 10 song, 37-minute effort that is Diane’s only effort with backing band Wild Divine. It is a joy to hear her tell her truths, sometimes dusky and mysterious, sometimes bright and clear, and usually both within the same song.

The alternate angle she applies to songs gives the record a wondrous cohesion, despite many different musical styles in the background. “Elijah” has a simple Gordon Lightftoot-style guitar strum in the background. “Heartless Highway” goes for a jazz lounge vibe that borders on affectatious. Both work because Diane’s delivery works as a magnet, pulling both styles to the center she creates.

Her vocals were so compelling that even after multiple listens I had a hard time paying attention to the stories she was weaving. That’s a shame because in addition to being a gifted singer, Diane is a born poet. The songs are lush and coy with their secrets, daring you to miss a single phrase and still piece together the story. Consider these lines from the haunting “Suzanne”:

“On the ceiling, hand painted flowers

In my heart, galloping horses

There was a death, forever lingers

Like the scent of antique roses”

The song is one long continuous poem, and just pulling those four lines it is hard to know where Diane is coming from, or where she’s going. If you want to know more, you’ll have to listen to it yourself.

Things aren’t perfect on the record. “Heartless Highway” barely survives the jazz-inspired arrangement, rather than benefiting from it. And I’m not just saying that because I don’t get jazz – although that is probably part of the reason. Diane also risks breaking the mood of “Desire” by spelling out the song title in the chorus (I generally only like my words spelled for me in a rap song). Fortunately, the song is just too full of restless ache to be denied.

To some extent, that restless ache permeates every song on the record. It may be a bit overpowering when you first hear it, but that’s just you having a case of the feels that you weren’t expecting. Give her a chance – and a second listen – and you’ll be glad you did.

Best tracks: Elijah, Suzanne, Long Way Down, The Wind, Desire, Rising Greatness

CD Odyssey Disc 1000: Alela Diane

In 2009, when my wife Sheila encouraged me to start this crazy journey, I just wanted to keep my writer’s pilot light going on those days where the day job didn’t leave me enough energy to work on a book. Listening to music was going to happen anyway, so why not shake the rust off the fingers while I was at it?

Eight years later here I am with 1,000 reviews under my belt, and no plans to stop. Thanks to everyone who is still reading, and thanks to all the artists who continue to fuel my love of music.

Best of all, we’re hitting this milestone with a masterpiece.

Disc 1000 is…To Be Still

Artist: Alela Diane

Year of Release: 2009

What’s up with the Cover? Mostly just Alela Diane’s Giant Head. There are some other things going on (including another Alela Diane doing something partly out of frame that I can’t make out, but will assume is very folksy).

How I Came To Know It: It was ranked #1 in Jim Vorel’s “20 Great Folk Albums to add to your indie rock collection” and when I listened to a few of the tracks, I had to agree. It was impossible to find locally, so I couldn’t support my local record store and had to order online. I’ll make it up to you, record store!

That article also got me interested in Paste Magazine and I am currently working my way through their 100 best indie folk albums of all time. I’ve only got twenty albums to go, and I’ve identified 11 albums I must have so far. It is going to be an expensive journey, but if you’re going to spend your money on anything, spend it on music. It’s good for the soul.

How It Stacks Up:  This is the only Alela Diane album I have. I’ve heard her other stuff and liked it, but for now “To Be Still” lives alone on my shelf.

Ratings: 5 stars

“To Be Still” has a wild and fey quality to it that makes you feel like you’ve stumbled into some elven forest. The music is haunting and timeless, like it was made by someone for whom the passage of time has little meaning.

Alela Diane is no woodland spirit; she’s an exceptional musician with wisdom beyond her years and an old soul who knows how to tap into universal truths and capture them with the clarity and power of a master painter.

“To Be Still” finds its inspiration in nature. This is an album where snowbanks, streams, and mountains mirror the landscapes of our minds. Diane explores deep within herself, and in so doing draws her audience into a similar introspection. Listening to her reminded me of those times in my youth where I would wander among the trees and lose myself, letting my mind wander and shed away my cares like an old skin.

Individual lyrical brilliance is everywhere on this record, but as a songwriter Diane is more of a landscape painter, and the individual images form a tapestry in your mind where you can’t help but let your mind wander in and out, half hypnotized by her picture perfect phrasing. This is an oil painting, where you need to take a step back, quieten your energy, and let it slowly come into focus.

Of course, it helps draw in your audience when you can sing like Alela Diane. Her upper range is unearthly, and she has that clearly enunciated folk style without ever slipping into a sing-song delivery. She lilts through songs that most people can’t sing at all, with a grace that lifts you up into the clouds. Some music is for singing along; “To Be Still” is about doing exactly as the title suggests; being still and letting it flow over you.

While Diane’s vocals are the star of the show, the musicians on this record are amazing, the more so because they willingly play a laid back style, adding brush strokes here and there to support the lead singer. Kudos in particular to the string section. Rondi Soule on violin and Luke Janela on cello. The violin on “White as Diamonds” is particularly powerful, crisp and expansive like the winter’s snow it helps evoke.

Singling out verses on an album this good is hard, but these lines from “Take Us Back” hit me in the core:

“I’ve a friend who lives out by the river’s mouth

He knows the fiddle’s cry is an old sound

A lonesome bow, the creaks and moans of empty houses

Are songs like falling rain”

Just typing those words puts shivers up my spine. When coupled with some fine playing and Alela Diane’s gifted vocals they cast a spell that puts you right at the river’s mouth, hearing a fiddle sing to you across the untold ages that instrument has inspired us.

Alela Diane writes all the songs, which are innovative and yet have an old school traditionalism in their foundations. You get a strong sense she understands what has come before, and knows how to build from there without ever being derivative. Rarely do you hear songs this ambitious that don’t overreach or come across too clever, yet Alela Diane manages it with apparent ease.

My friend Josh and I listened to this album together for the first time and argued about what kind of music it was. Josh determined it was pop based on the chord progression (he is more musically educated and a stickler for tradition). I said folk based on the style and arrangement of the songs. It doesn’t really matter, of course. Great music transcends genre, and “To Be Still” is a modern masterpiece.

Best tracks: All tracks – because that’s how five star albums work, my friends.