event Alela Diane

Northern California singer-songwriter Alela Diane played her first show opening for friend Joanna Newsom, and 2006’s The Pirate’s Gospel should have borne a sticker saying, “Recommended if you like Joanna Newsom and Jolie Holland.” While that record found Diane building subdued, reflective songs around her voice, guitar-picking, and little else, her Rough Trade debut, To Be Still, brings in pedal steel, cello, and violin for an expanded sonic palette that nevertheless manages to sound arrestingly stark.