Itasca working on new LP, playing NYC with folk legend Philip Lewin
LA-based psych-folk singer Itasca (aka Kayla Cohen) released one of the finest folk albums of 2016 with Open to Chance (on Paradise of Bachelors), and then put out the new song “Grassland” for Our First 100 Days in 2017. She’s now working on a new album, which is very exciting news:
spending the winter in new mexico working on a new itasca record. learning a lot about the southwest and desert economies. and the beautiful views, trying to scheme buying an abandoned town somewhere out here.
— itasca / kayla (@kayla_itasca) December 7, 2017
While you wait for that, Itasca revists her former hometown of NYC for a one-off on January 17 at Union Pool with loner folk legend Philip Lewin and modern psych-folk staple Mike Wexler (tickets). Most of Itasca’s shows have been on the West Coast lately (including a recent run with Lee Ranaldo), so this is a great chance for New Yorkers to see her (and maybe get a taste of some new songs?).
Philip Lewin, who reissued his 1975 debut album Am I Really Here All Alone? on the Tompkins Square Label last year, makes that bill extra special. WFMU’s Jeff Conklin has called the album a “loner folk masterpiece,” and here is some background on the album from Philip Lewin himself:
In 1967 I began my life in the student union of a university. In other words, I was in school. But, classes definitely took a back seat to people-watching and attempts at relationships. I would not say that I was particularly good at the latter, but I made a great observer. I even stayed near the school community for an extra year until an opportunity came up to move in with friends in Toronto, Canada, which turned out to be a pivotal opportunity for me.
I was once told that one should first write about one’s own experiences, then, expand to documenting the observed experiences of those around, and, finally write about what one imagines. Am I Really Here All Alone? encompasses all of the above. Something else I realized in writing lyrics is that sometimes it is good to be transparent about the meaning and others times, not so much. “Unusual Day” is an example of me being honest struggling to develop and maintain a relationship, but ultimately realizing it was not going to succeed. “Watercolours” documents a crushing experience, but is couched in metaphor. I hope that listeners will relate through their own experiences, and because my reality is implied, not specified, will not be limited to mine. “Sweet Georgia” is an example of me, as a writer, leaving my personal space. I think of it as an attempt to clone William Faulkner to Bobbie Gentry. “The Magic Within You” is actually a commission where I was asked to write a song for a benefit to be performed by Doug Henning, the groundbreaking stage magician and friend. I once heard John Prine complain that there was no point in writing a ‘train song’ because Steve Goodman had already written the perfect one with “City of New Orleans”. Naturally, I had to write “Back Home, To You”, my idea of a train song where I tried to capture the movement of the train in the rhythm of the guitar. As for the other six songs, to me, they all reflect realities, experienced, observed and imagined. Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” However my question is, “Am I Really Here All Alone?”
Stream Am I Really Here All Alone?, Open To Chance, and Mike Wexler’s latest LP (2016’s Syntropy), below.