Imitation of War, by Itasca (2024)

1.

stillness in the rye fieldexcept the peaks of the grassI’m taking my break under the sunI’m laying back under the silk treeclose my eyes I dreamthe misty castle greentower in the treesI dreamt of genevievethe myth in the mirror’s gleamand I leave her behindas the shade rolls inand my tears turnto feed the chrysalisin the tree besidehours in the dayI am footsteps on the ridgeI’m piling my sandremembering your facein OrionI’m on the plateau with my musehe acts the wise woman’s keyslaughing in the breezeand I begin to explainfriar’s lantern on the wallcandle flames like headlightsin the glasscoming downfrom the furthest passthe sweet essenceof the time I lefthours in the dayI am footsteps on the ridgeI’m piling my sandremembering your facein Orionand I begin to crossthe plain in its floodwith my walking stickI check the depths ofmy grief, standing as waterI must dive down

2.

chasing the nextthe plateau there andthe rain it falls carelesson the oil I’m paintingand I’m crying to catch herthe line that I’ve tethered hereshe’s fleeing the judgmentin a careless rainand her muse’s crown on my headstings like a tearWas it a snare set by the devil?then I fell right inor I was a saintthere on the chapel fontin this Imitation of WarI was outsidewatching the orange treeas the blossoms turnedand the spear weaves the laureland I’m crying to catch youmuse in the laurel treeI will paint the flowersjust chain them to meand her muse’s crown on my headstings like a tearWas it a snare set by the devil?then I fell right inor I was a saintthere on the chapel fontin this imitation of war

3.

just yesterday I saw you runningunder sheets of cobalt blueI was on my way to forgettingI was on my way home from youin the house on the river Nicetrapped in an archetypal danceI extended my hand to the momentI look back at it nowbarely, barely,barely I was hanging onreason enoughto be under firebut it’s on reasonI must dependand it was darker in the evening thenmy words from their shelterand running round the bendand it makes me laughand cry out and laugh againthe era’s throughbut the story will not end

4.

5.

moonlight’s shining in the clearingdeep blue skytears on sky mountainare drawing hightry to pile them allthrough the needle’s eyelead the rushof the ocean’s tideby lamplight I saw smokethat was curling around my angerit was made of white snowcoming from the maze’s centerthought I loved a namethat my angel was singingsome spirit word on thedry hillsidecoveting my visionsinging “sweet summer nights”“of wine and song”horsem*n’s devil lurkingbut his sanctuary’s goneand you would not sing to meconfession is foregoneI’ll wear the stones downunder my feetmy own flight my pawnmisguided wish for fire’s songchaos in the veil that we’re walking uponmy prayer is tired but my rosary is longthat’s the effigy I’ll holdtil the shadow’s gonemoonlight’s shining in the clearingdeep blue skytears on sky mountainare drawing hightry to pile them allthrough the needle’s eyelead the rushof the ocean’s tide

6.

dancing womanshe holds the linesee her in my mind’s eyesings to my sightdancing womanI shape her facetracing the night lineeasy and freeshape in a fevera border keeperrings on her fingersidol makera name in the ethera face in the well’s eyefruit of child’s playinand I’m racing to tryin the cup of Circejingles the tunekey to the exitwhere the sun’s lookin throughand if the night fallsstand on the linedancing womanis her face mine?

7.

I lay in the satin foldthe sleeping spirit of the cowboythe mythic fire coldthe western dream an ember in the pathcaught myself as a thiefand I cannot believeI am playing sentinel alonepicking acorns in the roadI knew the road to my el doradobut I was caught looking at the weedsempty signs, but a turn of mineI was tied looking at the treesand my friend, she gives me a blessing,she believes,shows me intothe house I’ve builtglowing in the botaniquedaylight shines on her theaterthe western revivedmy remote cutoff in the sandmy story liesI knew the road to my el doradobut I was caught looking at the weedsempty signs, feeding the turn of mineI was knelt down looking at the treestell me about your feelingI see your eyes are looking dimI see you running circlescounting the ways aheadsage flowers and iceshow me all the ways you lovefool cowboy stands rider in the sandI see your fire’s getting low

8.

set sail on the maelstromon the unknown sidedarkness in the waterwhere my tiller guidesI’ve come like a childsearching for the sweetit* colors are aliverainbow holding meand I’m on my way to yourunning me back to yourunning me up to youeasy spiritrushes through the treeseasy spiritthat mine could bedeep and rollingas your guidingthe rabbit in the eavelion in the styhomebound on a tumbling seawhere my last word ridesmilkmaid upon the mountainand our pack besideall going to the place whereeasy spirit lieschoruslittle cabin in the distancewith the smokestack burningisland with the green lightand the shoreline unstirringback to youback to youeasy spiritrushes through the treeseasy spiritthat mine could bedeep and rollingas your guiding sea...

9.

piper draws the overturein a caroling songthe voice that calls mefrom the wings, sings his melodylike the apple tree that hangs onthe curtains rise, I sing my songmyth changes to an actor’s callthe bell rings, the curtains falland storyless I’m offto walk with the crowdfeet on the branches of his groveand night’s coming onstand there besidedo I love you lead me lightthere in the wingspick me up when I’m fallenwhen I’m lost out in the rainhe is here and the light is strongI’ll walk withinthe face that draws my line alongthe melody

10.

and my steps are wontto start anewI die inside my willin joy tears downriverI’m on my way back to thatgentle field I’m seedingI dig my claim into the earthin this time Idid not know would comebut how does it feel?olympia, she stands at the shorein my cradle you laythe verdant agethe key’s in the door

Album page: paradiseofbachelors.com/shop/pob-073
Artist page: paradiseofbachelors.com/itasca
Other options: lnk.to/PoB73

ALBUM ABSTRACT

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.

ALBUM NARRATIVE

Was it a snare set by the devil?
then I fell right in
or I was a saint
there on the chapel font
in this Imitation of War

The first Itasca record in over four years begins, in “Milk,” with a dream of Genevieve, “the myth in the mirror’s gleam”—perhaps, on this faith-haunted album, a reference to the fifth-century saint, or the chaste, cave-dwelling heroine of medieval legend. It ends with Olympia, standing at the shore—maybe, among these myth-haunted songs, a reference to the ancient Greek sacred site, or, considering the artist narrator of the title track, to Édouard Manet’s revolutionary 1863 painting of a defiant sex worker. Across its suite of smoky nocturnes, Imitation of War finds Los Angeles-based songwriter, singer, and guitarist Kayla Cohen continually embracing the tangled ambiguities of its evocative title, with its suggestions of artfulness, artifice, and antagonism alike.

Aptly, the song “Imitation of War” maps the range of the eponymous record’s domain, in which Cohen surveys, with refreshing urgency and a refined sonic palette, mythologies and psychologies both classical and deeply personal. Her characteristically ethereal vocals precipitate, among orange and laurel trees, upon rockier terrain than ever before, negotiating a “muse’s crown” and “a snare set by the devil.” The uneasy idyll, set to a brisker tempo and more spirited and spacious band-centered arrangement than most anything on Spring (2019) or Open to Chance (2016), her prior two albums with Paradise of Bachelors, captures the flexibility and finesse Cohen wrings from reduction. Distilled to an oceanic essence of guitars, bass, drums, and vocals, Imitation of War is simultaneously (and somewhat counterintuitively) her loosest, leanest, and most liberatingly unclad album and her most theatrical set of songs and performances to date. “Molière’s Reprise,” named for the seventeenth-century French playwright, sets the mise en scene:

like the apple tree that hangs on
the curtains rise, I sing my song
myth changes to an actor’s call
the bell rings, the curtains fall

and storyless I’m off

This kind of allegorical theatricality manifests not only in the redolent, if sometimes cryptically allusive (and intentionally Jungian), symbolism and subject matter—which includes El Dorado, Circe, and Orion in addition to the aforementioned cast of muses, saints, and devils, at play in night and nature—but likewise in the immediacy of its inky, glammy production. Cohen began writing several of these songs, notably “Tears on Sky Mountain,” in the fall of 2020, while she was recording with Gun Outfit (with whom she plays bass) in Pine Flat, California, near Sequoia National Forest. A nearby forest fire darkened the day into an eerie, eternal gloaming, ominously masking and unmasking the moon above the redwoods—a menace and color palette that shaded the resulting songs.

Engineered and co-produced by Robbie Cody of the bands Wand and Behavior, whom Cohen credits with helping to instill a newfound levity and sense of fun in the recording process, Imitation of War features both Cody’s bandmates Evan Backer and Evan Burrows and Cohen’s regular collaborator and bandmate Daniel Swire, also of Gun Outfit. Cody proved instrumental in shaping the elemental, guitar-centric arrangements to achieve what he refers to as “an economy of sounds.”

Cohen played all the guitar parts herself, largely on her 1971 Gibson SG-100—the acoustic instrumental sketch “Interlude,” the ballad “Dancing Woman,” and the portrait in miniature “Olympia” are exquisite exceptions—showcasing her deft command of the instrument. Nowhere is this confidence and lyricism more evident than on the record’s sublime nine-and-a-half-minute centerpiece “Easy Spirit,” the incendiary, downshifting dynamics and painterly solos of which radically expand her prior folk-inflected guitarist touchstones—Michael Chapman, Mike Cooper, Meg Baird—into the rarefied rock-and-roll strata inhabited by Jerry Garcia, Phil Lynott, and Tom Verlaine. These ten sturdy set-pieces represent the most smolderingly electric guitar-forward recordings of Itasca’s deepening catalog.

Cohen explains the titular simulation as the “performance of war postures” evident at every scale of human and animal life. But it could just as easily apply to the revelation that, with Imitation of War, Itasca has finally come to inhabit fully the staged postures toward which former records gestured. She sounds more herself, more confidently authorial than the longing protagonist of her earlier work. No imitation, formal or emotional, of former self or imagined other, remains. It’s a self-knowing sentiment implied in the lyrics of “El Dorado”:

I knew the road to my El Dorado
but I was caught looking at the weeds

Instead, now, as she reflects a couple verses later, her eyes are out of the weeds and on her characters, where “daylight shines on her theater.” Or as she sings at the close of the pastoral “Under Gates of Cobalt Blue”:

and it makes me laugh
and cry out and laugh again
the era’s through
but the story will not end

KEY POINTS

+ Co-produced by Robbie Cody (Wand, Behavior), these ten sturdy set-pieces represent the loosest, leanest, and most smolderingly electric guitar-forward recordings of songwriter Kayla Cohen’s deepening catalog.

+ Deluxe LP edition features 140g black virgin vinyl and a full-color printed inner sleeve with lyrics and additional artwork
+ Deluxe CD edition features a gatefold jacket with replica LP artwork
+ RIYL: Michael Chapman, Bridget St John, Mike Cooper, Steve Gunn, Gun Outfit, Wand, Ryley Walker, Aldous Harding, Weyes Blood, Meg Baird, Myriam Gendron, Jessica Pratt, Linda Perhacs, Sibylle Baier, Bert Jansch, Vashti Bunyan, Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris, Moby Grape, Chris Darrow, The Farm Band, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Thin Lizzy, the Dead, Television
+ Album page/details/acknowledgments: paradiseofbachelors.com/shop/pob-073
+ Artist page/bio/tour dates/links/back catalog: paradiseofbachelors.com/itasca
+ Smart link: lnk.to/PoB73