Alela Diane - The Purcell Rooms 11/10/07

To read the published review, click here.

Alela Daine occupies a place in folk music entirely of her own. She’s alone on stage at The Purcell Rooms to scratch out her personable view of the world at large. She seems fresh from the dusty, arid plains of America and sings like not a drop of coarse liquor has tainted her vocal chords. And she stands so still.

Her guitar work is almost patronisingly simple, but her grace and charm sparkle above and beyond it. She taught herself, we think. On a rickety old chair on the front porch of the rural set wooden house her Granddad lives in, we think. We imagine her laughing on a hand built swing and eating home made pecan pie before nervously and self consciously practising her lines.

She’s ever so slightly hunched tonight, with skin like milk. Her hair is tied to one side and she’s wearing a skirt, a waistcoat with nothing underneath and yellow cowboy boots too big for her. We can imagine her playing with horses and cows with her older brothers on her father’s ranch, we think.

And then she sings with a voice so warm and shrill it melts the stuffy properness of the all-seated venue in the Southbank Centre. She plucks new song My Brambles before gliding her way through much of her only record, The Pirate’s Gospel.

Her style remains the same throughout: fragile, unshakeable, and poignant. But her subject matters are diverse, with only pirates and Jesus bestowed with repeat mentions. That makes sense, given the album title. She covers button collections, motherhood and new shoes.

She’s inspired by a plastic bag found in a dead ladies house with the label ‘pieces of string too short to use’ on it. “It’s funny how people only remember the weird stuff when you die,” she says.

She sings of fear and regret on album highlight The Rifle: “Papa get the rifle from its place above the French doors/They’re coming from the woods, they’re coming from the woods/Brother I’m so sorry you watched the paintings burn.”

She plucks and cheers along with imaginary shipmates on the albums self-titled morale booster. “While some folks row way up to heaven/I’m gonna sing the pirates gospel/I’m gonna sow these feet for dancing/I’m gonna keep my eyes wide open/Yo ho yo ho yo ho ho/We’re gonna sing the pirate’s gospel/We’re gonna chant the pirate’s gospel.”

And so it rolls on. Her apparent purity and authenticity is quite something. You don’t doubt her roots, you just hope she doesn’t fall in with the wrong crowd. Sure she might be pretending, but everyone pretends, and it’s the one’s we believe that are special. And fucking hell do we believe.

Alela Diane is the best thing to happen to female folk music in a long time. This is what it would’ve been like seeing Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez et al back in the sixties when folk still mattered to people. Only better.