It’s been a bit since we’ve heard from Itasca, the folk project led by Los Angeles-based musician Kayla Cohen. Her most recent album, Spring, came out at the end of 2019. Today, Itasca is announcing her first new full-length since then, Imitation Of War, which will be released in February. Today, she’s sharing its title track as the lead single.

“This song was originally inspired by the film My Night At Maud’s, but then became much more than that — the long dialogue scene in the middle of the film where the two leads are discussing religion and self but are also conversationally dancing with and around each other,” Cohen said in a statement, continuing:

Then a few days later a friend spoke the phrase “imitation of war,” and to me it became a way we operate with each other, imitating peace or war through our antagonisms, intended or not, through the ways we’ve all learned to be.

That’s where the inspiration for the title and the chorus came from, and then through working on the song more the story mostly became about chasing the muse when writing music and making art, and then taking on the costume of muse myself. And I wanted to write what for me is almost a power pop/glammy song with the chorus effect on the guitar, and have fun with the riffs and guitar arrangement. The music video plays with the ideas in the lyrics and shows all of the people who have worked on and played on the record in various guises and environments.

Watch and listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Milk”
02 “Imitation Of War”
03 “Under Gates Of Cobalt Blue”
04 “Interlude”
05 “Tears On Sky Mountain”
06 “Dancing Woman”
07 “El Dorado”
08 “Easy Spirit”
09 “Moliére’s Reprise”
10 “Olympia”

Imitation Of War is out 2/9 via Paradise Of Bachelors.