Kayla Cohen is releasing a new album UNMOORED BY THE WIND under her acoustic outsider folk project Itasca next month. The finger picked minor chords of Nature’s Gift recall for me the melancholy isolation of David Bixby, a 70’s folky who privately pressed an album called Ode to Quetzacoatl, the tale of how he lost his power of expression in a bad acid trip only to reclaim it through the spiritual side of music. Whereas Bixby’s music came as a desperate measure, Itasca’s stark acoustic arrangements come off as a more deliberate engagement with lonesomeness; an appreciation for the solitary natural features of L.A. where she resides, and an patient ear for the intricate resonance of an acoustic thrum. She stands as a frontierswoman of acoustic music in 2014, invoking past decades only in a select few artists who share a certain reclusive singularity.

UNMOORED BY THE WIND is out on cassette October 14th on Marmara Records.