Itasca
Imitation of War
PoB-073
LP/CD/digital
February 9, 2024

On Imitation of War, songwriter and guitarist Kayla Cohen advances Itasca into rockier terrain, with a suite of smoky nocturnes and uneasy idylls surveying, with refreshing urgency, mythologies and psychologies both classical and personal. Co-produced by Robbie Cody (Wand, Behavior), these ten sturdy set-pieces represent the loosest, leanest, and most smolderingly electric guitar-forward recordings of Cohen’s deepening catalog.

Cohen’s got a voice that glows like the sun at dusk, and plays guitar with a nimble yet intricate touch. – NPR

Simultaneously haunting and heavenly … shimmers with an eternal mystery. – MOJO

Cohen’s most salient talent is evocation—trapping place, weather, and physical presence like a butterfly pinned beneath glass. – Pitchfork

PoB Links
PoB Artist Page: paradiseofbachelors.com/itasca
PoB Album Page: paradiseofbachelors.com/shop/pob-073
Album smart link: lnk.to/PoB73

Itasca Links
Website: www.itascalosangeles.com/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/kayla_itasca/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@itascamusic
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Itasca/
Twitter: twitter.com/kayla_itasca
Bandcamp: itasca.bandcamp.com/
Spotify: sptfy.com/Itasca

Imitation of War

LP/CD/digital

Itasca: El Dorado

A soft wind blows and I'm delicate enough to feel it
Of the western rose you're the last one of the season
Brie keeps kicking herself for feeling
Left the light on cos your brain was reeling
Another piece down so it's all revealing
Watch how it grows from refracted things
Your belly's a home for a star we dreamed
I can't stop now cos the creams in flow
You're a primal force with a heart of snow
Wherever you are
We sing the same thing
Wherever you are
We sing the same thing

Cymbals in the back cos the trash has flow
Reaching for your hand like I'm doing up a bow
Melting on the ground cos I let it slip
You stuck around like you found something

Maybe I’m a someone in your life
It started with a day and it turned to night
Here you and I are conspiring thoughts
Now look at us folding up a cot
Glaciers wouldn’t melt
Meant it all in earnest but then it fell down
I couldn’t keep you honest but it seemed to work
When I think about your kisses my stomach starts to hurt
Held by the seven sealed doe
Rampant as a squirrel skipping through the snow
Keep telling you I mean it til you start again
When you catch a feeling
Ride it til the end

When you get the fine and the angels
Chime in their harmonies
Under your thumb
That is the magic devotion has given
I couldn’t trace the words but I felt the flow
I couldn’t look away but I caught the show
Sometimes a poem has the truth you need
But you don’t need to know a thing to write a poetry

Papa

Delicate

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.  Sometimes I just get the feels.

Afterthought

fliegen lernen, vicci

198. Secrets Of The Heart  (3-1-24 George Gerrard Original)

Waterline

Single/Radio Edit of We Are Radio Signals that, in my humble opinion, is better than the album version.

Big Grey Sun #3

We Are Radio Signals (Radio Edit)

Lonely Road is the first song written with Mike Dampf.  His lyrics paint a lovely picture.

Lonely Road
M: Dan Swanson
L: Mike Dampf

There’s a somewhere that lives in my heart
Where a sleepy river flows
With busy hummingbirds and buzzing bees
By a cottage down a lonely road

Was it ever really there?
Is it just a lovely dream I want to share?
   
A river’s running through my sleepy[, sleepy] mind
Where dusk and dawn entwine
Her Sunday clothes are hanging on the line
At the cottage down that lonely road

Was there a way to change her mind?
Are these just shadows of another time?

It’s a somewhere that lives in my heart
where that sleepy river flows
with buzzing hummingbirds and busy bees
at that cottage down a lonely road

Was she ever really there?
Is this just a lovely dream I want to share?

There’s a woman in a dress of green
sitting on an old porch swing
the river whispers, meandering
past the cottage down that lonely road

Don’t look back, Don’t look back….

Copyright 2024 Swanson& Dampf

Lonely Road

When rivers end (DEMO)

Burned down a good house

9/5/23
 
V1
Is this my newfound era?
The season changing now
Not sure where I landed
But I’m too deep to bow out
 
He’s walking on over
outstretched hand, with a beer  
I don’t even drink these days,
But something’s come over me. 
 
Chorus
And tomorrow I’ll have a sore head
But I’ll be back for more 
cos tonight I am dancing on
My lovers dance floor 
 
V2
He slides on in beside me
Asking me how I’ve been,
I can’t help blushing rosy
Now I’m sure he knows I’m keen
 
So many years escaped us
Yet it feels like yesterday 
I can’t suppress the butterflies 
He’s got so much to say 
 
 
Chorus
And soon I’ll forget my fear 
My nerves will vanish  
Cos tonight I am safe in my
Lover’s grip 
Yeah tonight I am safe in my lovers grip
 
V3
My insides warm as he speaks
Directly into my soul
Why did this take forever?
Why does time feel fast but slow?
 
Chorus  
and time don’t mean anything 
If I can’t have all this,
I wanna stay held here
In my lovers grip 
 
V4
I’m intoxicated by him,
At his mercy, i beg for more
He’s sweeping me off my feet
And he leads me to the door
 
Chorus 
And tonight I’ll have a numb face
But I won’t forget it,
Cos tonight I’ll get high
On my lovers trip 
Yeah tonight I’ll get high on my,
Lovers trip. 
 
V5
 
And tomorrow I’ll fill up my cup 
In some other empty way
I don’t feel like I am the type 
That any man can get to stay
 
Boredom always enters in
And makes my heart deflate
No matter how hard you try with me,
I am not your soul mate.
 
 
Chorus 
But this one feels different, 
I can’t let this one slip. 
Cos forever I will wanna keep up
this lover’s tryst
Yeah this can go on time again 
This lover’s tryst

The Trauma Diaries

Lover's tryst

Demo dumping ground. 

Just a mum making music in her bedroom with a cheap mic, Logic Pro, and zero musical training or capabilities. It’s all unedited, unfiltered, raw demo stuff. Aka what I probably sound like live 😂

Lover's tryst

HL HULA

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