A Decade Of Chris Cohen’s As If Apart
Photo: Kate Dollenmayer
Having come from a creative family with a music business executive for a father and a Broadway actress for a mother, Chris Cohen has become a beloved multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and producer, based in Los Angeles, California, whose spiritually sophisticated sophomore album “As If Part” turns ten years old this month. Immediately, what comes to mind is the singular year in which this record was conceived. 2016 seems a lot longer than a decade ago, and I’m sure Cohen would agree that this particular time frame doesn’t add up with everything that has happened since, to say the least. But what an atmospheric artifact to celebrate in all its harmonious glory, and tangible tones as we peel back the lyrical layers, and tender tones of one of Cohen’s critical classics. The veteran musician began to conceive the album in 2013, with material usually starting on piano or scratch keyboard tracks. Over the next three years, Cohen began fleshing out the songs through sonic sketches and various volumes of the mind by connecting with evolved emotions in a way that would eventually make this body of work so concrete and intimately iconic in all its gratifying glory. While laying out the bones of the album, Cohen worked as a gallery assistant and gave guitar lessons in his studio to make ends meet. Returning to LA from his time in Vermont, where a friend named Zach Phillips helped write two of the ten songs, “Memory” and the title track, the veteran songwriter dialed in to his polished process of bringing spiritually sophisticated and soothingly somber songs to life with his atmospheric ability that has since secured him among the greats of his generation.
“I’m just writing about what’s on my mind. Lyrics start as the sounds that fit; the melody might need particular vowel sounds: “What vowel sound do I hear on this particular note?” From there, I go to wherever it is that’s interesting to me. Whatever’s on my mind comes out as a sound.”
Photo: Joe-McMurray
While focusing on chord changes, the revolution of riffs, and the mathematics of melodies, the album took Cohen into tonal territories that only he knew the flight patterns to. With each track taking four months or so, the songwriter balanced the responsibilities of life while simultaneously summoning some of his finest work at that particular time in his career. Inspired by the poet Andrew Maxwell, “As If Part” takes translucent turns through the void in search of that legendary light at the end of the tunnel, only to discover it was never a tunnel in the first place, but a vibrant vacuum, whose walls and cosmic crevices bend with each turn as listeners grow closer to their dystopian destination. The album turned a decade old this month, and with a special deluxe release featuring demos and live tracks, longtime fans can expect a textured trip into the melodic mind and lyrical landscape of one of the greats of our time.
