Itasca is songwriter and guitarist Kayla Cohen, who abandoned Los Angeles for New Mexico where she wrote her second album “Spring”, released at the end of 2019. Here’s “Only a Traveler”:

Coming across like a world weary Joni Mitchell channeling Nick Drake “Only a Traveler” is built on Cohen’s finger-picking guitar playing, full of subtle complexity, her introspective captivating vocals adding melancholy and mystery to create a powerful but restrained song.

The whole album “Spring” is a quiet wonder. Unhurried and restrained but bursting with surprising musical and melodic flourishes, most notably the delicate jazzy piano accompaniment of Marc Riordan (Sun Araw). “Spring” is not really folk, or country or even Americana, but seems a kind of American Cosmic Music, where the psychedelia may be dialed right back, but so often there in the minimalism of the luminous understated accompaniments and in Cohen’s exploratory songwriting.

As well as those Joni Mitchell/ Nick Drake vibes on “Only a Traveler” the rest of “Spring” at times carries ghosts of David Crosby’s “If Only I Could Remember My Name” and Ry Cooder’s “Paris, Texas” haunting atmospheric soundtrack, while also fitting alongside the music of contemporary songwriter Aiofe Nessa Frances.