An artist going from the country to the Big City is kind of a cliché. But the inverse? From the Big City to the country? One thinks of Bob Dylan and The Band retreating to Woodstock, or the Grateful Dead moving to Mickey Hart’s ranch. And that’s just what happened to singer/songwriter Hannah Cohen. Heck, she’s even got a tiny dose of psychedelia in her lushly arranged songs.
We caught up with Cohen—whose fourth album Earthstar Mountain, drops this Friday, March 28—from her home in the Catskills area. She told us over Zoom about her love of the area, as well as the value of collaborating with people like her partner, Sam Owens (who releases music as Sam Evian), and indie rock legend Sufjan Stevens.
But she isn’t just about her own albums. Sessions with acts like Big Thief, Cass McCombs, Blonde Redhead, Palehound, and Helena Deland have taken place at the studio in the home she shares with Owens.
Cohen’s life journey involves making smart, interesting moves and following her muse, from growing up bohemian in the Bay Area to a brief stint working as a model in NYC. “My parents instilled in me that, you know, art is life and is life force and it helps people communicate in ways that they don’t have access to sometimes.”
What singers or styles are the biggest influences on your work?
I have a very eclectic rolodex of music that I’m listening to. I listen to Turkish psych. I listen to Italian torch singers. A lot of Brazilian music. But I also listen to a lot of Sly and the Family Stone or gospel. I love the Clark Sisters, Dusty Springfield. I listen to a lot of old film scores and instrumental music. But I think what kind of influences my singing the most is, like, flutes. With this latest record, I was really obsessed with flutes and wanting my voice to feel like a flute. So, kind of everything.
What is an album that clicked with you when you were young and made you consider singing as a future career?
I listened to a lot of jazz. I had this CD, like four volumes of Billie Holiday, that I got for, maybe, my 13th birthday. My dad gave it to me. And I had just painted my room, kind of like seafoam green and I had, you know, Teletubby posters in there. My mom called it the Teletubby taqueria. She let me paint it this lime green. And it had blue trim, like when you’re painting your room, you trim the room with that blue tape. I kind of loved the green blue, so I just painted the trim that blue. So, when I was 13, I changed my room to more mature seafoam green with green trim, and I got curtains with flowers on them. I got a new JVC CD player, and a new dresser. And so, I felt very grown up. And then I got this four-volume CD pack of the best of Billie Holiday. It was the fall and I was just singing in my room and vibing out and just loving singing and singing along to those songs. I think that was really a kind of pivotal moment for me.
The songs on Earthstar Mountain have an abstract quality. But are they inspired by your real life in an autobiographical way? The themes of the album are more universal, but the personal can sort of translate into the universal, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, I think my everyday life does affect my songwriting. And I do feel like with my writing, it is very stream of consciousness. And so, it’s the subconscious kind of coming out, you know, writing a song and singing a melody and just words sort of kind of fly out. And then, I’m like, “oh, okay, I guess that’s how I was really feeling” (laughs). You’re, like, throwing paint at the wall a little bit, but then, you know, stepping back, seeing a composition there or a shape of something.
Do you get the melody in your head and then work out the chord changes?
I write on a nylon guitar from, oh God, I think it’s a ‘72 nylon Martin. And I just kind of like riff with chords and then a melody will come through. Sometimes I write on piano or Omnichord, which is sort of a guitar/piano together. There’s a song on the record called “Rag.” And I just kind of wrote that walking down my road, and I wrote the lyrics and the melody and then went home. And as soon as I got home, started just playing something, and then it wrote itself pretty quickly.
What is it about the Catskills that makes it so influential in your art?
The nature, the constant water. Where we are, it’s like a temperate rainforest. So, there’s a lot of water, fresh springs. There’s a creek running through our property where we live. And a lot of musicians historically have been in the Catskills area. Being able to be so immersed in nature and getting to see, you know, the seasons change around you every year. And these patterns that appear and rot and repeat every year. And getting to witness that in this more visceral way than I had ever experienced before. You know, I lived in the city since 2004. And we moved up here in 2018. I was in New York for a long time.
One of the things that I think is key to your records and sound is that it’s all very layered. There’s a lot going on, but it’s not busy. It’s all just sort of almost Zen, right? It’s all just kind of there. It coexists. Are you involved in all of those arrangements?
It’s very much Sam. Sam studied composition. He plays saxophone. That was his beginning instrument, and he’s just such a profoundly talented producer and musician and songwriter. And he is a trained musician and went to school for music, got a full-ride scholarship to Berkeley music school, which then he dropped out of, of course. That’s what you’re supposed to do, I guess. And so, I have cherished working with my working relationship with him. Sometimes it can be tricky to navigate, because when it’s your partner and you’re working on music together, it can be, you know, sensitive. But we share so many loves with music, but also, we bring a lot to each other and I love sharing things with him. And so, yeah, that’s a lot of the production. That’s all Sam.
But it’s not just Sam, even though he’s obviously key. You’ve got a whole cast of supporting characters on Earthstar Mountain. People like Clairo and Sufjan Stevens. How did those collaborations come about?
Sufjan worked on a couple of the songs. He’s a dear friend and collaborator. I sang backing vocals on his last record, Javelin. So, we’ve worked together and we’re neighbors. I’ve known Suf for probably about 13 years. Once I moved upstate, we started spending more time together and working on music, and just encouraging each other. But also, Sufjan is such an artist, so we’ll tie dye together or we’ll do art projects or we’ll do knitting. He’s so multifaceted, so he’ll help me, you know, design merch.
Have you ever asked Sufjan when he’s going to finish that 50 States project? The only ones he ever did were Illinois and Michigan. He’s still got 48 states to go.
I’m sure he has them all finished somewhere!
