Hannah Cohen’s cooking playlist

We sit down with the singer-songwriter to talk about music, food and finding the right ingredients for whatever comes next

For Hannah Cohen, cooking is less about following a recipe than finding a rhythm. “You want to be in a flow state when you’re cooking,” she says. “So having music that helps you keep that energy up is really fun.” Her cooking playlist is built around that idea: a warm, gentle mix of dusty disco, funk, cumbia, Brazilian music and left field discoveries, designed to keep things moving in the kitchen.

It’s an instinctive approach that mirrors the way Cohen thinks about making music. Living in the Catskills in Upstate New York with her dog Jan, she often cooks for friends and other musicians, starting with a recipe and then “fuck with it”, adding fennel, anchovy, soy sauce or more wine until it feels right. Songwriting works much the same way. “I’ll just kind of mull over this song or the lyrics and be like, that’s not flowing right,” she explains. “It needs a little salt. It needs a little vinegar. It needs a little anchovy.”

For Cohen, the first bite matters in both disciplines. “When you’re writing a song, you want to pull in a listener,” she says. “You can’t just say some wispy stuff. You gotta say something potent.” She offers a particularly damning line from her recent single, ‘Golden Chain’, as an example.

I wanna matter more to you / Than those internet girls you do.

“That gets people’s ears perked up,” she says with a wry smile. The line takes on a particular weight given where Cohen finds herself now. Since the release of Earthstar Mountain, she has spent much of the past year touring, including a return to Europe for the first time since 2019, while beginning work on a new record. The single has a Billie Holiday-esque melancholy to it, a glimpse into a period of profound personal and creative change. Cohen describes the time behind it as “pretty devastating”, but says it has also opened her up to working with new people, including a new producer in LA. “With hardship comes something else,” she says.

Interestingly, Cohen reveals that ‘Golden Chain’ isn’t actually the blueprint for what comes next, “not really the direction” she’s going with the rest of her new work. Instead, it captures a moment of transition, an artist finding new ways of working after a period in which her personal and creative lives were intertwined. Perhaps that’s where cooking and music meet most clearly for Cohen. Neither is about sticking rigidly to instructions. “You gotta always be open to learning new recipes, learning new life things, learning new ways to write,” she says.

Ahead of a string of UK and European dates, we sat down with the singer-songwriter to get a taste of the music that keeps her cooking.

‘Don’t Let It Go To Your Head’ – Black Harmony

It’s just so joyous. “Now that you know how I feel about you, don’t let it get to your head now.” It’s cheeky, but it’s honest and true.

Some of the vocal cadences remind me of your own. Does cooking sometimes help you process ideas when you are writing and recording?

For sure, yeah. I think I’ll run through stuff when I’m cooking. Honestly, I haven’t been doing a lot of cooking lately because I’ve been on tour. So my process is always changing. I’m writing the new stuff and working with this new producer, so we’ll write in a different way or find some new chords. Everything’s changing always. I like not being stuck in one way of writing or one way of cooking. You gotta always be open to learning new recipes, learning new life things, learning new ways to write, and not saying ‘this is the only way that I can do something’, you know?

‘No te vayas’ – Sparklmami

I’m really blown away by Sparklmami as an artist and all of her visuals. The vibe of the record is so cool, it’s a 10 out of 10 for me. I think I really love also listening to a full record when I’m cooking or with friends, just being on a sonic journey and with your senses and food and drink and friends and stuff. This would be the record I would put on if I was having a dinner party or cooking.

When you’re cooking a meal for an hour or so, do you like to go back to old favourites, or do you kind of use it as a space to find new music as well?

I think I have a space to find new music, but not if you’re following something that’s pretty intensive and you need to make sure you’re not burning shit or there’s a lot of steps. If I’m just cooking something that I know how to cook and I’m just going back to an old standard, then I’ll listen to new music, like some new trap music or cumbia or whatever. I’m always exploring. But if I’m cooking something new, I want to listen to old music that I don’t have to think about so much.

I’ve been really into, yeah, a lot of different stuff and checking out new artists, so it’s been fun.

‘It’s So Different Here’ – Rachel Sweet

It’s funny, I played this song for a friend and they were like, “This sounds like something that you would do”. That’s a big compliment. I don’t know much about her, I wanna check her out more.

‘Que Loucara’ – DJ EXE, Cacau Chuu

I’m really into this. It’s a little spicy and fun to listen to when you’re cooking in the kitchen. It’s fun. I don’t really know much about them, but also stumbled upon this song recently and really into it.

‘Xale (Toubab Dialaw Kids Rhyme)’ – Wau Wau Collectif

This one feels more like a recording of a communal practice; is that a quality that you enjoy in music generally?

Yeah, I love the feeling of the room and feeling the energy of the room on a recording, especially on this one. I kind of stumbled upon it a couple months ago and it’s just so joyous with the kids singing. It’s beautiful.

Speaking of community, who is your current band?

It’s always kind of changing. I’ve had so much touring this year, but usually it’s been Sean ‘Moon’ Mullins, who’s an amazing musician, an artist, and puts out these incredible records, instrumental records. And then Nuria Graham, also an incredible songwriter, and she’s got this song called “Gloria” that we did mention in the interview. It’s incredible. And I should have put it on the playlist. I’m sleep deprived. Nuria Graham is incredible and a dear friend. Like, yeah, everyone in my band is my friend.

So that’s been great. And then Devon Yesberger on keys, and Lane Backstrom on drums. Lane’s from Chicago and I have a bunch of Chicago friends that we have and share, and Devon is an amazing keyboardist and musician. Everyone up there is doing their own thing, making their own records, and so I feel super lucky. And then also, I’ll have Kristen Slipp, not on this tour, but Kristen Slipp on vocals, and she’s incredible and has this band called Meadows and she used to tour with Dirty Projectors and lots of other bands, and she’s an incredible vocalist in person.

Right now on this tour, it’s Vishal Nayak on drums, and he’s amazing. And he actually played on my last record, Welcome Home, and he plays with Nick Hakim and loads of people. And is a dear homie. And then Izzy Orin Brown, playing guitar with me and singing, and she’s got her own projects too.

So this one it’s Vishal, Izzy, Devon, Lane, and myself coming to Europe. But yeah, the roster flips between drummers and guitarists mostly, but even Sean Mullins, who played all the drums on my last record, on Earthstar Mountain, he also plays with María from The Marías and her other project called Not For Radio. So, like, he’s been touring with her. So when he’s not available and working with her, then I have to switch out.

Everybody’s busting their ass, you know?

‘Mates’ – John Caroll Kirby

I actually just got together with John to work on a song last month, and we’ve become friends. And I’m a big fan of his work and yeah, just that—I put that one on there. I was looking through favourited songs and I was like, oh, I’ll put that one on there. But I love his work and he’s, yeah, working on new music and he’s doing a little tour in Europe. Big fan of his.

‘Cordeiro De Nama’ – Os Tincoas

I just love Brazilian music. I listen to so many different things, but the harmonies on this tune are so beautiful, and I love the record cover. I think I actually have a lot of influences from Brazilian music, particularly Gal Costa and the phrasing and stuff. I think a lot of the music that I listen to definitely finds its way into my music, but they’re maybe subtle or maybe they’re not? I don’t know. It’s a big soup of influences for sure.

Trio Bulgarka – ‘Taz vecher ne mii veselo (I am not happy tonight)’

Oh my god, the vocals! The singers are unbelievable in it, and it just enters your soul. You know what I mean? And the title of that song is like, “I’m not happy” or something, and it’s like, damn. You can feel it.

I’m really moved by music. I think everybody is, but you know when you find a song that really hits you, you want to sort of metabolise it. I don’t know, I listen to the same song over and over again and want to learn everything about it and the metabolic structure of it. And that song is just, it’s unbelievable. It’s something else, like it’s religious or spiritual, you know? Of course, music is spiritual, anything can be, anything can be everything.