Personally, I blame computers. By deskilling the process of music creation via the means of software and the consequent ability to endlessly edit everything until it becomes mundane, the joy and beauty that is surely the purpose of all true artistic endeavour is lost. What reminded me of this simple fact? One listen to “Morning Flower” by Itasca, the nom de guerre of Kayla Cohen.
These nine songs of guitar and occasional voice may seem, on first acquaintance, to be no more than lo-fi musical meanderings and, in truth, several of them are both very lo-fi indeed and full of meander yet there is something both primal and elegant in all that is presented here to our ears. There is also an organic component that makes all things real, and also strangely spiritual, for the 36 odd minutes it takes to journey from start to finish. Some may say that this is just another rerun of the sound of post flower power west coast of America but the reflective ambience nudges everything out of any specific time and place into a place where the only breeze is generated by the windmills of the mind with “Snow Time”, in particular, likely to induce the euphoria that comes with peace.
“Morning Flower” is therefore an anachronism in the compressed ugliness that is today yet the album has timeless qualities that make it seem as relevant to today as it will be in a century from now. Something so right should, after all, be forever.
Available from Bandcamp and other digital sources.