ALELA DIANE
More than a decade into one of contemporary folk’s most quietly extraordinary careers, Alela Diane returns on May 22 with Who’s Keeping Time? via Fluff & Gravy / Loose Music.
The Portland songwriter’s seventh full-length album came as the consequence of intuition, coincidence, and community. On the first of April last year, Michael Hurley, folk legend and indispensable presence in the Portland music scene, died at the age of eighty-three. “I was absolutely gutted,” says Alela, who didn’t just revere Hurley but knew him well. She performed in a tribute show for Hurley, and in that collective mourning, found solace and inspiration. “It was an epiphany to realize how much I missed my community. I felt very clear about what I wanted in that moment—I want to be alive. I want to see live music. I want to play it.”
Though she’d taken the solo route on her last handful of releases, Alela was interested in a new way forward. Plucking the day away in the attic of her 1892 Victorian home, she found new songs flickering in the dusty light—and a desire to play them with people.
Alela met drummer Danny Austin-Manning at Clay Street Studios one night and he introduced her to co-producer Sam Weber (Madison Cunningham, Anna Tivel). Along with Sebastian Owens on bass, they recorded fifteen songs in less than five days—all live in the very attic where she wrote them. Anna Tivel contributed backing vocals and violin. Peter Lalish, of the band Lucius, added guitar. Fellow Pacific Northwesterners Kati Claborn and Luke Ydstie of Blind Pilot and AC Sapphire provided overdubs of all kinds. Alela’s vision for uninhibited music and revived, creative kinship thrust her into a new season.
The result is an 11-track set ranging from lulling to raw to cinematic, with Alela’s mellifluous voice a lively and affecting instrument throughout. The lyrics reveal an artist with the particular kind of strength required to face pain without getting lost—an ability Alela has honed over a lifetime of songwriting, during which her lustrous discography has garnered major critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR Music, The Guardian, and plenty more. UNCUT has characterized her skill as “insanely beautiful, with the strength and delicacy of spider silk” while counting her work among the ‘50 best singer-songwriter albums’ of all time—a canon comprising John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Paul Simon. Consequence has echoed that significance, declaring, “Hers is a timeless sound, that of a wayfaring troubadour, which only seems to come a few times a generation.”
With Who’s Keeping Time?, Alela Diane transforms grief into gathering, reaffirming her place as a vital, living force in contemporary folk music—rooted in community, presence, and the enduring power of song.
THE HACKLES
The Hackles are a folk collaboration from Astoria, Oregon, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. Comprised of Kati Claborn, Luke Ydstie, and Halli Anderson, the band is slated to release their fourth full-length album, I’ve Got Sugar, Who’s My Neighbor? in the fall of 2026.
Powerful harmonies and an unconventional and nuanced use of guitar, violin, banjo and clarinet combine to create a compelling and unique brand of folk that lies somewhere between Appalachia and Topanga Canyon. The songs are imbued with compassion, humor and a dark honesty.
The trio have a decade’s-plus worth of touring under their belts nationally and internationally as The Hackles and as members of Horsefeathers, Blind Pilot (Claborn & Ydstie), and River Whyless (Anderson). Frequent collaborators in the rich Pacific Northwest Folk scene, they have played and recorded with a wide array of artists including Michael Hurley and Alela Diane.
For European touring in the fall of 2026, the Hackles will be performing as a duo with Kati and Luke.
“Highly refined songwriting & awe-inspiring harmonies”- Rough Trade
“Intelligent, highly-melodic song-writing with infectious instrumental hooks, perfectly offset by sumptuous harmonies”- David Pratt, Folk Radio UK
