Like letters committed to well-worn paper in elegant cursive by hand, the music of Chase Cohl channels a bygone charm and delicate magic.
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Finding enchantment in the melancholic Laurel Canyon bliss of Joni Mitchell (“a fucking wizard,” in her estimation) and Jackson Browne as a child, the singer, songwriter, artist, fashion designer, and Littledoe creator crafted a vision of dream folk with moments of rock ‘n’ roll energy that brings the Summer of Love’s gloriously stoned spirit to the Coachella generation. At the center, this troubadour pens poetic narratives of love gone awry, loneliness, and loss over a subtle backdrop of acoustic guitars, banjo, and piano.
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“I’m a big perpetrator of storytelling,” she exclaims. “I think there are so many interesting tales to tell. We’re all going through this bizarre thing called life. It’s so weird right now in the universe. I try to be a little freakishly honest about myself and what I’m feeling when I sit down to write. The songs tend to be shaped around finely carved lyrics. The music is like a diary to me more than anything."
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Born in Canada to a mother and father of impeccable taste, the songstress fell in love with classic songwriters early on. Combing her parents’ record collections, she consumed everything from Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie to James Taylor and Emmylou Harris. With dad in the record industry, a young Chase can share snapshots of being backstage as a kid with the Rolling Stones and other luminaries, citing Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood as her “style icons” to this day. She quietly picked up piano before eventually moving on to guitar and banjo during her college days as a poetry major in New York City where she devoured the works of
Jerome Rothenberg, Henry Miller, Arthur Rimbaud, and others. Simultaneously, she drew on a lifelong passion for sewing and unassumingly crafted the debut collection of Littledoe’s headpieces in 2009. She sold her first to none other than Fergie following a chance encounter in an NYC restaurant—“I was like, ‘I think I started a company!’”
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Post-graduation, the budding musician traded the Big Apple for Laurel Canyon. “I had this dream of smoking weed in a long floral dress,” she laughs. “The idea of California was always very inspiring to me.”
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In the midst of presciently building Littledoe into a Vogue-endorsed early progenitor of the modern Boho movement sported by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and other fashion icons, she penned countless songs. Between performing alongside the likes of Cory Chisel and Cameron Avery as well as on a series of Best Fest shows, she released singles “Windsong” and “Blue Eyes” to early praise from Nylon, Exclaim, and more. In the middle of a 2016 tour with Lissie (and a breakup), she started to work on the songs that would eventually comprise her 2017 independent full-length debut.
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“I was with this guy for very many years, and we split up on that tour—not in a nice way,” she sighs. “Some of the songs look back. Some, I wrote for myself because they were words that he would never say. The album really dove into being single for the first time in forever, living on my own 3,000 miles away from my family, and figuring out what I want to do. This record was born out of a series of letters I wrote to different people, experiences, and myself.”
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Joined by producer Loren Humphrey [The Last Shadow Puppets, Guards, Willowz], Chase discovered Valentine Studios in Los Angeles. A true “time capsule,” it served as the site for seminal recordings by The Beach Boys and Elvis before closing its doors in the late sixties and recently reopening. Untouched, the original console, equipment, and décor remained intact and offered a distinct energy for our heroine’s seven-day marathon recording session in 2016.
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“It’s the most magical and groovy place,” she smiles. “You walk in, and nothing has changed. It’s so trippy and weird. All of my friends and I are already super inspired by the sixties and seventies. We felt like we were in 1965, which made it super easy to flow into the vibe. We consciously chose to record in the smaller room, so everybody could get close.”
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Among many friends who rolled through, the likes of Rodrigo Amarante [Little Joy], James Richardson [MGMT], Benjamin Booker, and more performed alongside her in the studio.
Raising the curtain, album opener “The Way It Goes” commences with sun-kissed strumming, a reverb-y lead, and a lilting croon as she laments, “I always learn my lessons hard, and now I’m filled with woe. Ain’t that just the way it goes.”
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“I wanted the record to unfold like a novel or even more so a diary,” she continues. “I’m asking people to share in such personal experiences. It’s so much about navigating through my demons, and the demons of others, ideally to turn those into something productive. It doesn't even have to be positive, just truly creative and therefore cathartic. It felt important to me to be wildly vulnerable & naked. So many of the themes are tragic, but the music has this sort of hopeful feeling.”
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“Love Is A Prison” tiptoes with a country twang punctuated by lithe slide guitar and banjo, while “Spark” sends a correspondence to her “self-consciousness.” Tapping into the raw emotion of the moment, she can recall “crying uncontrollably” during the stark existential rumination of “California Too Long” where loneliness doubles as the word “Baby.” “Dream About An Old Piano” closes the album as her soulful delivery—“He don’t love me still”—seamlessly bleeds into Richardson’s piano. At the center, “Wolf” sums up an important theme.
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“‘Wolf’ was a nickname my ex-boyfriend called me because I’m a loner, and the wolf is my spirit animal,” she admits. “There are a couple of things most people don’t want to admit. Firstly, they won’t say they’re lonely, which I don’t think is an embarrassing thing. It comes with being a wanderer. Secondly, people find it hard to say they want love. I think we need loneliness and love.”
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Ultimately, it’s this kind of honesty that makes Chase’s music timeless.
“I want listeners to feel like they’re not alone when they hear me,” she leaves off. “If this record affects one person to be okay with that vulnerability, that’s all I could ever ask for.”
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— Chase Cohl