An indie folk artist from Portland via California, Alela has been around a while with the likes of Devendra Banhart and Wild Divine.
Alela keeps it mellow throughout. The songs revolve around the title and are about the relationships that reach their expiration date. Alela's deliberate acoustic strumming and fingerpicking is generally unaccompanied by rhythm tracks. The production is enhanced with the most common of instrumentation that you'd find on indie folk. Some piano, some mandolin, etc.The focus is on the songwriting.
So the storytelling style is going to remind the listener of Joni Mitchell or even Bon Iver. There's situational observations throughout. The weather, the sunshine, etc. Alela's voice though is closer to Natalie Merchant's though. Mellow and controlled, she avoids excessive vocal trilling or many melodic dynamics.
The deepest of these cuts is "The Way We Fall", as seen in the accompanying amazingly shot video. The video is solo acoustic. The album version of this track includes some percussion and horns. I cannot decide which is better.
Enjoyable on a sleepy autumn afternoon. But if I were to put any of this on your mixtape, we're probably breaking up. (3 of 5 stars)
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