Review: L’Rain’s ‘Fatigue’

Multi-instrumentalist Taja Cheek, who records under the moniker L’Rain, creates a unique experience in Fatigue. The album is kaleidoscopic and unpredictable. Cheek envelopes the listener in her world with a combination of impressive musicianship, production, and field recordings. The album is full of beautiful moments, an early one being how Cheek embellishes a live gospel recording in the second half of “Find It.” “Suck Teeth”, a smooth number that is as close to straight-ahead as Fatigue gets, has Cheek in a mesmerizing back and forth with ethereal vocals. 

“Suck Teeth” is named after a reaction of annoyance heard throughout the African diaspora. The song is between two other brief signifiers of life and culture, “Black Clap” and “Love Her.” The former contains the sounds of handclap games common amongst Black children, and the latter is a spontaneous recording of Cheek’s friend jokingly making up a song. Right before “Black Clap,” “Blame Me” has Cheek at her most devastating. The name L’Rain is in honor of her late mother, Lorraine. With this in mind, it is hard not to be moved by the lyrics of “Blame Me” as she sings over melancholy guitars, strings, and keys: 

“I was born naked into this world / You never let me see you cry / Gave you nothing inside of my time / Maybe that’s what ends your life / Fought my demons until you were old / Maybe ‘cause you love me.”

Fatigue is spacious at times but never static. “Find It” floats through a hypnotic wordless mantra before its compelling gospel conclusion. Cheek’s majestic singing in the vast “Take Two” is otherworldly. Vocal effects obscure words over a pulsing beat in “Kill Self”, a song that shows a very different side of her artistry. Equally oblique and confrontational, “Kill Self” evokes the feeling of being lost in dizzying thoughts. “Two Face” is a dazzling number about the end of a friendship. True to its title, the first portion of “Two Face” shifts between two distinct instrumental passages. The first features haunting singing over a shimmering piano, but the second is much brighter. It begins to feel as if the sun has started to peek through the clouds. “Two Face” fascinates in how it plays with mood – the saddest lyrics are in the more positive atmosphere of the second passage: 

“I can’t build no new nothing no new life no new nothing for me / I’ve gotten all of my bricks aligned but mortar’s escaping me.”

Fatigue is sequenced extremely well and best heard from start to finish. Each track has an immersive psychedelic atmosphere. The eclectic nature of the album renders genre categories useless. Cheek’s debut showed that she is an adventurous artist, and Fatigue is an excellent album that takes her intangible dream of a style to the next level. 

Fatigue is now available on Bandcamp

Personnel: Taja Cheek (vocals), Jon Bap (background vocals (4)), Quinton Brock (vocals (1, 10)), E.T. Cali (voice (1)), Ben Chapoteau-Katz (synthesizer (2, 8, 10), saxophone (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14), vocals (10), percussion (2, 6), airhorn (1)), Tiger Darrow (cello (2)), Buz Donald (drums and percussion (2, 6)), Alex Goldberg (drums and percussion (1, 10, 12)), Travis Haynes (organ and vocals (2)), Devin Hobdy (background vocals (10)), Andrew Lappin (guitar (6, 12), programming (2, 8)), Alita Moses (background vocals (2, 12)), Taj Sapp (background vocals (2, 12)), Jake Sherman (organ and clavinet (2, 6)), Mike Stephenson (background vocals (2, 12)), Abby Swidler (viola (2)), Zosha Warpeha (violin (2)), Anna Wise (background vocals (4)).

Tracklist: 1. Fly, Die; 2. Find It; 3. Round Sun; 4. Blame Me; 5. Black Clap; 6. Suck Teeth; 7. Love Her; 8. Kill Self; 9. Not Now; 10. Two Face; 11. Walk Through; 12. I V; 13. Need Be; 14. Take Two.