{"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","url":"https:\/\/mexicansummer.myshopify.com\/products\/lrain-i-killed-your-dog-634457145153","provider":"Mexican Summer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}