Jackie Cohen has shared her cinema-inspired single, “The Valley,” an all-but-orchestral soundtrack to her Hollywood-adjacent upbringing in California’s San Fernando Valley. In the accompanying video, she sulks around like the Anna Karina of her synagogue, singing in the iconic neon glow of decades-old commercial signage, telling her bittersweet tale about being back in her hometown and feeling bad about not getting a nose job.

Cohen brought in fellow “valley kids” Shaun Fleming (Diane Coffee) for backup vocals and Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood) on the 12-string guitar, making sure that everyone who was involved in the making of “The Valley” intimately understood the unique “Valley bubble” experience. The video was directed by Cohen’s next-door neighbor, fine artist and rock photographer Marly Ludwig.

Cohen’s third record, Pratfall, is out September 23rd on Earth Libraries. Cohen produced her new LP alongside her long-time collaborator and husband, Jonathan Rado (Weyes Blood, The Killers, Tim Heidecker) and their engineer Rias Reed (The Lemon Twigs, Crumb). Jackie Cohen will be playing a release show for Pratfall at Gold Diggers on 9/22 with support from Shaun Fleming (of Diane Coffee) and a DJ set by Jonathan Rado.

Speaking to “The Valley,” Cohen says, “This folk song is for the Valley girls and Ventura Boulevard pervs. It’s my most autobiographical song. A love letter within the context of Stockholm Syndrome.

When I wrote this song, I was listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell and Radiohead and Paul Simon, all artists who have mastered the glitteringly pretty and haunted song about being back in a town. This song, for me, is like those big amalgamated memory sequences that happen in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Vanilla Sky.” Both films are about these deeply melancholic characters who aren’t ready to reckon with themselves, and they kick and thrash and self-sabotage until they are so badly injured that they elect to undergo fantastic dystopian medical procedures meant to erase their pain and affect ignorant bliss. There is no bliss. Their formative memories bubble up and mash together and distort and zombify.

When I wrote “The Valley,” I was just beginning to notice the bubbling. It’s a sentimental song about the catastrophe of realizing who you are a second too late and the weirdly serene experience of looking back in grief as everything unravels. For a while, it really felt like I had escaped the trappings of my upbringing. It really annoys me how everything really does boil down to childhood.

I think it’s really cool that we made an orchestral piece without an orchestra.”

Jackie Cohen
Pratfall
Tracklist
Earth Libraries

1. Two Days
2. Coup De Grace
3. The Valley
4. Pratfall
5. Ghost Story
6. Moonstruck
7. Dire Love
8. Lost Without Fear
9. Some Days
10. Extra Credit
11. Scraps Of Love

pre-order Pratfall by Jackie Cohen HERE