Long, dark hair spilling over her cheeks, dreamy eyes flashing at the crowd, singer songwriter Adaline overtook the Red Room in a raw display of musical prowess and vocal agility. Equal parts lust and love, the September twenty-third Peak Performance finale left a glowing audience exhilarated and longing for more.

A few days prior, I had met the bubbly and personable songstress at a neighbourhood cafe in Kitsilano. Had I witnessed Adaline’s performance before we sat down for an interview, I would have expected to find her in a dungeon of depravity.

She readily attests to being pulled toward “sexy” music — perhaps an ironic twist of fate for the child of a Christian Minister. Born in Ontario, from an early age Adaline grew accustomed to a life of touring, moving cities and provinces almost every three years. During her youth, musical exposure was limited to gospel, show tunes, classical music, and a selection of approved Christian pop/rock. Whatever the genre, however, all musical styles benefited from her stunningly operatic vocal range and enviable lung capacity.

Adaline’s adolescent foray into secular music was immediately upended when her parents tossed her Pearl Jam album, Ten, into the trash, citing Eddie Vedder’s gritty vocals and rough lyrics as inappropriate for a young girl. It wasn’t until she was nineteen and living on her own that Adaline was exposed to indie music, a genre she hardly knew existed.

“I remember the first time I heard Radiohead and thinking, ‘Oh my God. I’ve never heard anything like this’”, she recalls, “that’s kind of the cool thing about learning about other musical styles at a later age — the discovery blows your mind.”

Adaline’s ultimate goal is to “strive against the cheesy music [she] grew up with.” While she managed to accomplish avoiding “cheesiness” in Famous for Fire (think: female Rufus Wainwright), she still played things safe. The album deals with the darker feelings of a young, love-tortured girl, but the soft sounds and orchestral pop bind her to the comfort zone of her musical upbringing.

But this is certainly not a detriment to her work — Famous for Fire received highly favourable reviews on a national level and got Adaline the attention she needed to leave audiences and reviewers craving more.

Stand-out track in the collection of melancholic melodies is “Chemical Spill”, which takes on a heavier, electronic sound. It’s a clear indication of Adaline’s desire to start sticking her toes in unfamiliar musical territory.

These early inclinations toward an upbeat, dance-pop style landed Adaline a game-changing partnership with Juno Award-winning Hawksley Workman. Adaline recalls seeing Workman perform live back in 2004 at Richards and Richards on his “Lover/Fighter” tour. “He was taking his clothes off on stage and dancing. I thought it was so cool that someone can be so sexy while they’re performing; but it didn’t feel like a gimmick. It wasn’t Britney-Spears-sexual, it was about a musical sensuality. I admired him for that; that’s the kind of music I was looking to make.”

Amidst the activity of a second-time run as a finalist in the Peak Performance Project, Adaline’s manager, Jonathan Simkin, decided it was time to start working on her second album. They reached out to a “dream list” of musicians, compiled by Adaline, to see if anyone would help produce her new venture. The list included TV on the Radio, Patrick Watson and, of course, Hawksley Workman.

A natural struggle ensued when Adaline, lauded for her “do-it-yourself” work ethic, was placed in a collaborative environment. Workman, for example, completes projects quickly, and challenges artists to match his speed for writing songs and recording vocals, often opting to stick with the first take of a recording. “It wasn’t easy because you always feel like you have to fight to protect your vision,” she says, “but there was an immediacy about the process that I think enhanced the music more than hindered it. I definitely grew collaboratively. I wouldn’t have known how quickly I could actually write if I wasn’t pushed so hard.” The work was done with such speed, in fact, that Adaline found herself back in Vancouver a mere four weeks later with a fully-recorded and -produced second album.

Watching her set at the Red Room last Thursday, I wondered if anybody realized how far Adaline had already come. From a girl on a stage with nothing but her piano to a musical Amazon bathed in LED lights and framed by two naked female mannequins, one thing is for certain: whether her father likes it or not, daddy’s little Adaline is all grown up.