Photo: Bandcamp
Itasca’s first release, 2011’s More, was two tracks long, one of them being a 30 minute drone piece, but since then, the project of Kayla Cohen has hewed to acoustic folk music. A few albums back she added a band, but it’s only now, on Imitation of War, that electric guitar has become part of the mix.
It’s somehow had the effect of making her songs dreamier, rather than more aggressive, the songs still orbiting her remarkable voice.
Itasca makes the sort of music which suggests open plains, farmland and forest, but Cohen is actually based in Los Angeles. There’s a certain mysticism seeping through her compositions, that the loose, intertwining guitarwork seems to enhance on songs like ‘Milk’. She handles all that herself, the other band members being a bass player and pair of interchangeable drummers.
They’re often absent all together, with songs like ‘Under Gates of Cobalt Blue’ harking back to earlier work in its focus on acoustic, and slightly more carefree demeanour.
It’s hard not to be impressed on a purely technical level with songs like that; Cohen doesn’t just possess a startlingly pure voice, she can reel off lightning fast fretwork too. Not just that, the acoustic and electric runs always compliment the song rather than distract.
Her earlier work saw her tagged as part of the freak folk genre, but to my ears her compositions have always been reasonably traditional, give or take the odd bit of low fidelity. If anything, it’s this album which sees her heading into weirder territory. Songs like the title track ‘Imitation of War’, gain a certain queasiness from the addition of skittering drums and barre chords.
Some critics have spotted post punk throughlines on this album, but the names that sprang to mind for me are perhaps more obvious: Weyes Blood, Karen Carpenter, even Joni Mitchell and Francoise Hardy.
Many of Itasca’s earlier songs and even whole albums only featured her playing; it’s slightly shocking to me that her singing voice wasn’t always the primary focus. Honestly my favourite tracks here are the ones that pair it with acoustic and not much else.
Songs like ‘Dancing Woman’ are reasonably old fashioned, and the mode suits Cohen well. She’s a fantastic songwriter, and while the new electric mode is well within her grasp, you can perhaps hear the stretch. ‘Dancing Woman’ just feels effortless.
'Itasca' is a portmanteau, a Latin and Ojibwe place name meaning “truth head” or “true source”. At its best, Cohen’s music feels deserving of a description that bold.
