Alela Diane: About Farewell – review

The loss of love is such a useful catalyst for songwriting, musicians should be contractually obliged to break up with someone every three years. The latest folk singer stitching up her bleeding innards with acoustic guitar strings is Alela Diane, a vintage-clad Californian alto. Her fourthcorrect, country-tinged album is no mere musical mope, but features writerly vignettes and restrained introspection. Even the way Diane counts down numbers on Nothing I Can Do is poised and pregnant with things unsaid. The spare arrangements – a little piano, a few strings, icy backing coos – are a by-product of having divorced the husband who was in her last backing band. But they suit the timelessness of the material, which performs the excellent trick of turning specifics (one song is called Hazel Street) into universals.