{"title":"L'Rain","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"lrain-i-killed-your-dog-634457145146","title":"L'Rain - I Killed Your Dog Standard Black Vinyl","description":"\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMulti-instrumentalist, composer, performer and curator L’Rain (Taja Cheek) returns with her third album\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e. Over-writing themes of grief and identity that informed her previous work, I Killed Your Dog considers what it means to hurt the people you love the most. Multi-layered in subject and form, L’Rain’s sonic explorations interrogate instead how multiplicities of emotion and experience intersect with identity. The experimental and the hyper-commercial; the expectation and the reality; the hope and the despair. “I’m envisioning a world of contradictions, as always,” Cheek explains. “Sensual, maybe even sexy, but terrifying, and strange.” Written amidst heartbreaks from the perspective of an earned maturity,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etakes the sonic world laid out by L’Rain in 2021’s album\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eon a compelling new trajectory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eDescribed by Cheek as an “anti-break-up” record,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etakes the universal pop theme of love as its starting point – bold, bratty and even a touch diabolical – and inspects it through the form of a conversation with her younger self, untangling her relationship with femininity and the formal musical conventions that others have come to expect of her.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAlongside long-time collaborators Andrew Lappin and Ben Chapoteau-Katz, Cheek has developed L’Rain into a shape-shifting entity that blurs the distinction between band and individual. Beginning as an abstract meditation on grief, Cheek traces the origins of L’Rain to the period which followed the dissolution of her vibrant DIY musical community in early 2010s NYC and the passing of her mother, Lorraine. The name L’Rain was conceived as both a tribute to her mother and her own gregarious alter ego L’ (lah-postrophe), and one which she subsequently tattooed onto her arm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCritically acclaimed by NPR, named album of the year in The Wire magazine and #2 in Pitchfork's best albums of 2021,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003epropelled L’Rain towards a new audience, while further cementing her place within experimental and art institutional spaces. And yet, equally inspired by gospel and ‘90s R\u0026amp;B, and touring with Black Midi and Animal Collective, Cheek is conscious of not allowing this narrative to dominate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAs with\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e, the cast of\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog’s\u003c\/em\u003eworld is supremely varied – taking in theoretical physicists, subverting Baroque compositional tropes and the dad rock nostalgia of The Strokes, the words of choreographer Bill T. Jones, tricks of commercial advertising and voice note wisdoms of people she holds close.\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a crystallization of L’Rain’s tactile approach to song-writing. The album is also an implicit interrogation of the electric dreams and failures of early synthesizers, toying openly with rock music tropes, the lineage of folk as Black music in America, and Cheek’s own background playing in experimental guitar bands.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eA self-confessed dog lover, the title track “I Killed Your Dog” explores the inherent contradiction in hurting those closest to you, embedded in a structure that references both Joan Baez and J.S. Bach. “It’s bit of aggro and contrarian, a bit of a fuck you to myself, attention grabbing and flashy, and also deeply confusing; Is the title an act of maliciousness and revenge or an expression of remorse and regret?” Cheek asks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThat sense of unease also permeates “Pet Rock” – a warped, guitar-driven indie tearjerker that treads a line between irony and sincerity, challenging the listener to confound their expectations. Recording her vocals in a state of physical frenzy, Cheek first embodies and then dismantles the rock clichés she is confronted with.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIt’s a theme picked up on “5 to 8 Hours a Day (WWwaG)”, itself pushing back against the culture of productivity, instrumental practice and the often-sloppy interpretations of her sound as “jazz-influenced”. Instead, it’s folk and experimental rock as inherently Black music that emerge as touchpoints, subverting the presence of steel guitar and Ambrose Akinmusire’s trumpet on the track.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e“I wonder how long it takes to forget someone you’re close to?” writes Cheek of “r(EMOTE)”, her layered vocals soaring over dramatic and fractured synth swells. “Maybe one day”, she repeats like a mantra as ‘r(EMOTE)’ opens out towards a pulsing post-rock crescendo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe album’s denouement “New Year’s UnResolution” is perhaps its most overtly pop-influenced, a shimmering personal excavation of the end of a relationship, written at different moments in time to trace the changing intensity of intimacy as it flees in the rear-view mirror.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThreaded with interludes – from personal recordings to self-made fake television commercials – the collage approach L’Rain first employed on her self-titled debut album, ties in references to previous work. Here “Knead Bee '' re-envisions Fatigue’s “Need Be” as a conversation with her younger self: “I imagined being a young girl wondering what would come of her life, being scared for the future and not knowing how it all would unfold. And I respond basically like, ‘Oh girl, you’re fine. You’ll be okay.’”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWhile the specifics may be hidden from view,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis an invitation to experience the big emotions of life through L’Rain’s prismatic lens. Pieced together like snippets of found sound, L’Rain is edging towards a practice that resists disciplinary categorization and instead reflects the messiness of the self in all its fullness.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mexican Summer","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47589452185901,"sku":"634457145146","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0846\/5802\/8845\/files\/LRain-IKYD-ProductShots-1x1-8.jpg?v=1700509232"},{"product_id":"lrain-i-killed-your-dog-634457145153","title":"L'Rain - I Killed Your Dog Oxblood Vinyl","description":"\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMulti-instrumentalist, composer, performer and curator L’Rain (Taja Cheek) returns with her third album\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e. Over-writing themes of grief and identity that informed her previous work, I Killed Your Dog considers what it means to hurt the people you love the most. Multi-layered in subject and form, L’Rain’s sonic explorations interrogate instead how multiplicities of emotion and experience intersect with identity. The experimental and the hyper-commercial; the expectation and the reality; the hope and the despair. “I’m envisioning a world of contradictions, as always,” Cheek explains. “Sensual, maybe even sexy, but terrifying, and strange.” Written amidst heartbreaks from the perspective of an earned maturity,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etakes the sonic world laid out by L’Rain in 2021’s album\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eon a compelling new trajectory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eDescribed by Cheek as an “anti-break-up” record,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etakes the universal pop theme of love as its starting point – bold, bratty and even a touch diabolical – and inspects it through the form of a conversation with her younger self, untangling her relationship with femininity and the formal musical conventions that others have come to expect of her.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAlongside long-time collaborators Andrew Lappin and Ben Chapoteau-Katz, Cheek has developed L’Rain into a shape-shifting entity that blurs the distinction between band and individual. Beginning as an abstract meditation on grief, Cheek traces the origins of L’Rain to the period which followed the dissolution of her vibrant DIY musical community in early 2010s NYC and the passing of her mother, Lorraine. The name L’Rain was conceived as both a tribute to her mother and her own gregarious alter ego L’ (lah-postrophe), and one which she subsequently tattooed onto her arm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCritically acclaimed by NPR, named album of the year in The Wire magazine and #2 in Pitchfork's best albums of 2021,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003epropelled L’Rain towards a new audience, while further cementing her place within experimental and art institutional spaces. And yet, equally inspired by gospel and ‘90s R\u0026amp;B, and touring with Black Midi and Animal Collective, Cheek is conscious of not allowing this narrative to dominate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAs with\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e, the cast of\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog’s\u003c\/em\u003eworld is supremely varied – taking in theoretical physicists, subverting Baroque compositional tropes and the dad rock nostalgia of The Strokes, the words of choreographer Bill T. Jones, tricks of commercial advertising and voice note wisdoms of people she holds close.\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a crystallization of L’Rain’s tactile approach to song-writing. The album is also an implicit interrogation of the electric dreams and failures of early synthesizers, toying openly with rock music tropes, the lineage of folk as Black music in America, and Cheek’s own background playing in experimental guitar bands.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eA self-confessed dog lover, the title track “I Killed Your Dog” explores the inherent contradiction in hurting those closest to you, embedded in a structure that references both Joan Baez and J.S. Bach. “It’s bit of aggro and contrarian, a bit of a fuck you to myself, attention grabbing and flashy, and also deeply confusing; Is the title an act of maliciousness and revenge or an expression of remorse and regret?” Cheek asks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThat sense of unease also permeates “Pet Rock” – a warped, guitar-driven indie tearjerker that treads a line between irony and sincerity, challenging the listener to confound their expectations. Recording her vocals in a state of physical frenzy, Cheek first embodies and then dismantles the rock clichés she is confronted with.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIt’s a theme picked up on “5 to 8 Hours a Day (WWwaG)”, itself pushing back against the culture of productivity, instrumental practice and the often-sloppy interpretations of her sound as “jazz-influenced”. Instead, it’s folk and experimental rock as inherently Black music that emerge as touchpoints, subverting the presence of steel guitar and Ambrose Akinmusire’s trumpet on the track.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e“I wonder how long it takes to forget someone you’re close to?” writes Cheek of “r(EMOTE)”, her layered vocals soaring over dramatic and fractured synth swells. “Maybe one day”, she repeats like a mantra as ‘r(EMOTE)’ opens out towards a pulsing post-rock crescendo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe album’s denouement “New Year’s UnResolution” is perhaps its most overtly pop-influenced, a shimmering personal excavation of the end of a relationship, written at different moments in time to trace the changing intensity of intimacy as it flees in the rear-view mirror.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThreaded with interludes – from personal recordings to self-made fake television commercials – the collage approach L’Rain first employed on her self-titled debut album, ties in references to previous work. Here “Knead Bee '' re-envisions Fatigue’s “Need Be” as a conversation with her younger self: “I imagined being a young girl wondering what would come of her life, being scared for the future and not knowing how it all would unfold. And I respond basically like, ‘Oh girl, you’re fine. You’ll be okay.’”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWhile the specifics may be hidden from view,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eI Killed Your Dog\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis an invitation to experience the big emotions of life through L’Rain’s prismatic lens. Pieced together like snippets of found sound, L’Rain is edging towards a practice that resists disciplinary categorization and instead reflects the messiness of the self in all its fullness.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mexican Summer","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47589452218669,"sku":"634457145153","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0846\/5802\/8845\/files\/MEX346-L_Rain-Mockup-08-V2.jpg?v=1700509209"},{"product_id":"lrain-fatigue-184923130911","title":"L'Rain - Fatigue Standard Black Vinyl","description":"\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBrooklyn-born and based experimentalist and multi-instrumentalist Taja Cheek, aka L’Rain, is mapping the enormity of how to change. Her forthcoming second album,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e, demands introspection from ready ears with an array of keyboards, synths, and hauntingly delicate vocals that create a genre entirely her own. Cheek has dipped her toes in every corner of the arts, through her work at some of the most prestigious art institutions in NYC and collaborations with the likes of Naama Tsabar, Kevin Beasley, Justin Allen, and others in contemporary arts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eHow do we think through, express for, attest to, commit within and embody a substantive change for ourselves? How do we enact change in the company of others? What does it mean to internally engage with an abolition politic? These questions compose and propel the sonic energy of\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e. Over the course of 15 tracks, L’Rain continues her careful plotting of where we travel when cruising along the side alleys and major roads of an emotional city.\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eprogresses the psychic collage assembled from her self-titled debut.\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e, while still cycling the wheel of grief, veers into the self-reckoning of holding emotional multiplicities that do not and cannot remain static. Cheek knows how we feel, and who we feel, expanding ever outward.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn the closing moments of the opening track, “Fly, Die”, we are asked, ‘What have you done to change?” This question is both invitation and invocation. Change and changing is not something done alone; it is a group process. L’Rain is clear in her desire for the collective to reflect and feel, admit and deny, balance and discard, consider and implement with her.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWith a release date in 2021, the timing of\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis not coincidental. Collectively, we are navigating the immense and looming figure of unremitting fatigue brought on by the ongoing pandemic, mass death, continued violence against Black people at the hands of the state, and the mountain range of systemic problems obstructing safety and security for the people that need it most. This quick succession of events wears our resilience to weariness. To question the nature of change with the awareness of weariness is to question the nature of exhaust: what are we putting out?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eputs out slippery sonics that Cheek describes as “approaching songness.” This “approaching songness” highlights L’Rain’s commitment to the experimental value of process as her practice. Heavily blending genres (thus making new unnameable space for herself) including but not limited to gospel, jazz, and neo-soul,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003efractures and mends our expectations of what musicians, especially Black women musicians, are categorized to do versus what they need to do (and actually do).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIn many ways,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a sonic meditation on finding balance through the obliteration of binary logic. Refusing the finitude of either\/or, L’Rain readily embraces the flexibility both\/and provides. “This album is an exploration of the simultaneity of human emotions…the audacity of joy in the wake of grief, disappointment in the face of accomplishment. The pervasiveness of this layering of emotions can be surprising, empowering, and discouraging; these overlaps happen every single moment, all the time,” L’Rain expresses. “I might be trying to be heard more on this record. You can hear more of the words, my vocals are louder.” This sentiment is most clearly, though subtly, expressed in the titles of the tracks. The titles can be read as a poem of 30 words and 15 lines, potentially divided into 3 stanzas. The presentation of poetic intervention brilliantly subverts our expectations of what lyrics do, where they present, the summarization of ideas, where and how marginalized people can be read or misread. “Black people, who, in the face of violence and discrimination, are often given little time to process.” The poetics of\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003egains even more radical momentum when we make clear how much of Black process and processing are forcibly rendered into abbreviation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFatigue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eencourages us to listen, laugh, mourn, hum, linger, realize, know, accept and release who we are, who and what we can be when we allow movements of change to be a necessary component of, not an antithesis to, rest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mexican Summer","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47589452316973,"sku":"184923130911","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0846\/5802\/8845\/files\/MEX309_L_Rain-Fatigue_ProductShots_06.jpg?v=1700509127"}],"url":"https:\/\/mexicansummer.myshopify.com\/collections\/lrain.oembed","provider":"Mexican Summer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}