August 2026
“Two years ago I was invited to play some songs, my oldest daughter is in seventh grade but at the time she was in fifth grade, and it was career day and the school asked if I would talk to the kids and play some songs for them. And when I was trying to decide what songs to play for them, I just thought ‘ooh these songs are dark! These are depressing!”
Alela Diane is recalling a moment that, maybe unknowingly at the time, would have a part in guiding the direction for her new album, Who’s Keeping Time? (released in 2026 on Fluff & Gravy Records) The singer songwriter who for the past two decades has called Portland, Oregon home grew up and got her start writing and performing music in Nevada City, that ethereal mountain town in California’s Sierra Nevada range, and even the most brief of listens to her liminal folk will make the connection to the forests and rivers of that hometown to her sound.
“In that moment, I think I just realized I need to bring some levity to the music again in a way that I had with To Be Still and that I maybe had lost circumstantially along the way – through the isolation of motherhood, through not playing with a band anymore after my fourth record with The Wild Devine came out and I was dropped from my record label. I mean, they’re not solo records, Cusp and Looking Glass [at the time her two most recent recordings], there’s a lot of orchestration and string, but they’re kinda somber and… solo feeling. I just wanted to get back into the spirit of playing with people and be in the part of my musical identity that was… I mean growing up in California my parents were in bluegrass bands, and I wanted to touch back into those instruments like fiddle, banjo and steel slide guitar.”
Such was what Diane kept in mind when writing for her new album. Most of her songwriting takes place in the attic of her Portland home, requiring her to keep the outside instrumentation in mind.
“I was pushing myself to at least have a handful of songs on this record that were a little more playful or a little lighter, even though there are still of course songs like “Spring Is A Fine Time To Die”…”
The idea of time tends to be a recurring theme in Alela’s music, and her lyrics steeped in musings and connections between people and nature. That song, “Spring Is A Fine Time To Die” meditates on the death of her friend and fellow musician and collaborator Michael Hurley. The album’s closing track, “Endless Waltz” lingers on thoughts of the passing of her grandfather, composing a masterful painting from simple brushstrokes of seemingly simple and insignificant details and scenes from his home.
“The first draft of this record were recordings made in my attic where I was kind of exploring and being curious, is this what this record wants to be? And it became very clear to me that I didn’t want to be alone in the project. Part of how this record came to be is I began making an effort to go out and see live music again. I’d been raising kids and it had been hard to get out, but I just started going to shows and I met a lot of other musicians. I met some of the incredible artists that are up here – that is how I met the drummer that I worked with, that’s how I met my friend Sam Weber who produced this record with me.”
From writing and recording the songs for Who’s Keeping Time?, Alela then set up a residency at Portland’s Laurelthirst Public House which included where, joined by friends, she would perform throughout the winter months.
“I knew once the record dropped, it was going to be hitting the ground running and I would be playing the songs. It can be so nerve wracking playing the songs for the first time, and I knew I wanted to be settled into playing the music with the band.”
Upon the release of the album, Diane did small tours of Europe and the Pacific Northwest, though she is preparing for a much larger cross country tour along with more dates throughout Europe.
“I think there are about 50 shows by the time the tour ends in November!,” she laughs.
One of which is a homecoming of sorts, performing at the Grass Valley Center For The Arts on Saturday, August 8th.
On Who’s Keeping Time? Alela opens the album with a track called “California” musing on her time apart from her Nevada City childhood.
“I wrote that song following a very short trip back. I was in Nevada City for 24 hours for a show. At that show I had an experience where I found myself talking to someone that I knew that I knew, but I couldn’t place her. It left me with this very unsettled feeling about the passage of time and people changing and losing recognition, even though I know that I know her, but I couldn’t remember who I was talking to, even though I had a shared a moment or some moments in my past with her. That’s what it can feel like down there because I have been gone for 20 years, but when I go back, it’s a very surreal feeling – and that confused recognition and just feeling heartsick about having to leave on that particular visit… I wrote that song about all of those feelings coming up on that very short visit. It’s just not long enough, it just makes me feel sad when I’m there for such a short visit…”
While the idea of time weaves itself throughout Diane’s music, she admits that the record release and looking out on a horizon with so much touring leaves little of it to spare.
“I miss the days of touring when I started doing this and our cel phones wouldn’t work in Europe. I wish that these days I had a little more time to hear myself think. I took about three months off of social media when I was first writing these songs and I think that was really helpful. I think once I’m through this record cycle I probably will explore doing that again because I do think that the channels for receiving creativity get clogged when you’re consuming too much media and letting too much outside input in there.
“But right now it’s just too busy promoting shows, this and that, all this chaos. It’s pretty chaotic, I don’t know what my headvoice sounds like right now. Too busy for that!” she laughs.
Alela Diane returns to perform in Grass Valley at the Center For The Arts on Saturday, August 8th.
Tickets are available here.
