By Celica Cook, SBM Student Life Editor
Join Itasca in her desert dream of an album, “Spring” through spiraling New Mexican canyons, and sweet desert melodies.
Los Angeles’s Kayla Cohen creates woven melodies from the soft picking of guitars and dreamlike sequences that paint pictures of the desert landscape she found herself writing the album in.
Far from the fast-paced city streets of her home city, Itasca found her inspiration for these songs in a classic style adobe house in dry, dusty, gorgeous New Mexico.
Perhaps you could see yourself quietly meandering through the desert with “Comfort’s Voice” playing softly in your ears. “And what you do not need/is another voice on your mind” she sings as the busyness of city life is stripped away by the tranquil desert silence.
Many great artists have used the stunning desert scenery of the western states as inspiration for their music. The Doors, America and Johnny Cash are just a few of the greats that allowed the power of the natural desert to shape their music. Itasca does the same with her music, creating songs that are as alive as the desert is. The lyrics flow like gentle water, bouncing off the simple silences around the melodies like the sound of rivers flowing through a dry desert canyon—filling the caverns with life.
Itasca plays around the silence. Her soft voice protrudes gently from thin air, gliding across the instrumentals the way the sun’s shadow glides across the desert floor.
Perhaps we could all use the metaphor of a tranquil desert scene to bring some peace into our own hectic lives. Maybe there is a wisdom in the way Itasca plays around the silence, giving herself just enough space for beauty to reveal itself.
Image retrieved from itasca.bandcamp.com.