This is an album containing rough recordings of original music written and recorded over the course of a few weeks during late September 2025. Each song was recorded in one take without any holding back and no or minimal editing of the lyrics. This is an intimate view into the roots of my songwriting process. 
At the end of August I saught help after a month struggling with my mental health and a relapse with alcohol. After spending ten days in the hospital I checked myself into a 30 day inpatient rehab program where these songs were written and recorded using GarageBand on my phone. Making music has always been the most powerful therapy for me, and I hope you enjoy this glimpse into an experience not only my own, but shared with many of you who navigate the trials and difficulties of mental illness daily. You may feel alone, but maybe these songs will keep you company.

Trouble in Mind

Setting Sail

Snakebite Blues

Buzzard Kisses

Peasant Song

Gone

In Tune

Edward Cohen was born in Houston, Texas, and raised all over the country before finding his footing as a songwriter in Portland, Oregon. By 15, he had already begun writing lyrics and teaching himself guitar, playing along with his father’s vinyl collection of blues, rock ’n’ roll, and folk albums—records by the likes of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin Wolf, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones. What began as a teenage refuge grew into a way of life: through his twenties, Cohen toured across the country, both as a solo performer and with a rock band, Comanche Joey, whose sounds leaned toward bluesy psychedelia. He got by playing music, often sleeping in basements and on couches or floors, always with a guitar in reach.

In 2021, Cohen relocated to Colorado, where he began a path of recovery from the turmoil of his twenties, speckled with short-lived relapses and a constant struggle to stay sober. Those struggles are etched deeply into his songwriting, which often consists of both warning and hope. His music—stripped-down folk, blues, and Americana—is raw, confessional, and unflinching, drawing from influences like Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, Gram Parsons, Nick Cave, and the Velvet Underground. Themes of the human condition, mental illness, heartbreak, loneliness, yearning, and the beauty of nature recur in his songs, carried by his preference for the big resonance of jumbo acoustic guitars.

Cohen often closes his eyes while singing, as though stepping fully into the worlds his music creates. His songs are not polished escapes but lived-in truths, testaments to survival and the fragile joy of staying alive. He’s never “made it” in a commercial sense, but for Cohen, the act of writing and sharing music has always been a matter of staying afloat—and in that raw honesty, listeners find themselves reflected.