Following
Open to Chance, her first album to feature a backing band, by three years,
Spring is the fourth overall effort from
Itasca, the alias of indie folk balladeer
Kayla Cohen. Collaborative or not, all four records are populated by the songwriter's gentle, fingerpicked tunes and evocative lyrics, inspired here by her temporary relocating from L.A. to rural New Mexico to write. Specifically influenced by the region's diverse landscapes, highway apparitions, and the isolation she experienced, the resulting songs were recorded to tape with members of
Gun Outfit and
Sun Araw. On an album where everything is soft and bucolic, notable behind-the-scenes collaborators include
James Elkington, who provided atmospheric string arrangements, and singer/songwriter
Chris Cohen, who mixed the record. Opening track "Lily" refers to hallucinations of a water lily that took place on the songwriter's drive from Los Angeles. Acoustic guitar and gossamer vocals set the scene with "I was looking down the road at Lily/Hundred miles past the end of the highway." Spacy organ tones and light percussion eventually flesh out the recollection, which ends with the phrase "Lily's dancing on the skyline." The song's dreamy, ruminative quality is maintained throughout
Spring, which remains understated even on relatively more animated tracks like "Only a Traveler" and "A's Lament," which add a rhythm section. Even "Bess' Dance," which offers spare drums, bass, piano, and occasional strings, is ultimately a storyteller-and-guitar tune, largely due to
Cohen's understated and often mesmerizing vocals. A sleepier song like "Blue Spring," which features pedal steel and sparse, strummed guitar, only provides contrast within a very narrow range of expression here, like when eyes adjust to dim nocturnal lighting, then notice the shadow of a stray moth.