L'Rain

Taja Cheek, known professionally as L'Rain, is an American experimentalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and curator known primarily as the lead vocalist and songwriter of her eponymous band.^[1][2] Her self-titled debut, L'Rain, was included in best-of-year lists by publications including Pitchfork^[3] and Bandcamp Daily;^[4] her second album, Fatigue, was counted among Pitchfork's "Best New Music".^[5] She has collaborated with artists including Vagabon, Helado Negro,^[1] and Naama Tsabar,^[6] and performed with Kevin Beasley at the Whitney Museum of American Art.^[7]

L'Rain has been recognized for experimental music that draws on a vast number of traditions and genres^[8][3] in a practice and aesthetic Cheek calls "approaching songness".^[1] Reviewers have variously identified her style and influences as including free jazz, ambient, noise music, and disco;^[9] experimental pop and dance;^[5] "psychedelic orchestral pop" and "distorted shoegaze";^[8] krautrock, outsider music, and hip hop;^[10] R&B and avant-garde rock;^[2] gospel, funk, and post-punk;^[11] and soul, drone, avant-pop, and musique concrète.^[12]

Early life and career[]

Cheek was born and raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,^[13] where she lived with her mother, father, and grandparents.^[1] Her father, Wyatt Cheek, worked in music marketing and promotion for entities including Select Records and Kiss FM;^[1] her grandmother ran a liquor store;^[2] and in the 1950s her grandfather owned a neighborhood jazz club.^[12] Cheek's mother, Lorraine C. Porter, taught physical education, health, math, and science in Brooklyn schools.^[14] The stage name L'Rain is an homage to Porter, who died before the release of the self-titled debut.^[9]

Cheek studied ballet and modern dance at The Ailey School^[12] and learned piano, cello, and Baroque recorder before picking up bass in high school,^[1] then forming and joining groups that included an Iron Maiden cover band.^[12] She attended Yale to study music but dropped the major, citing factors including a lack of diversity among the program's course offerings.^[15] She transferred to the American Studies program, where her major included a concentration in visual, audio, literary, and performance cultures;^[16] in 2011, she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction.^[17] While at Yale she worked as music director of radio station WYBC and booked shows.^[1]

After graduating, Cheek returned to New York. She resumed playing in and co-leading Brooklyn bands including Throw Vision;^[18] the group released their debut in 2013 and a 7" EP in 2015.^[19] She also began presenting and curating public art, working with organizations such as Creative Time and the High Line.^[15] In 2014, Cheek was a site manager for the Funk, God, Jazz, and Medicine: Black Radical Brooklyn exhibit, installing a radio station in a pink Cadillac outside the Utica Avenue A/C subway station^[20] in homage to Jitu Weusi, black nationalist community arts center The East, and jazz nonprofit and festival the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium.^[21] The same year, she co-organized "The Kara Walker Experience: WE ARE HERE", a public gathering of people of color at the Domino Sugar Refinery for Kara Walker's installation A Subtlety.^[22] Cheek began working for contemporary art institution MoMA PS1 in 2016, with curatorial work including co-organizing the Sunday Sessions and Warm Up series;^[23] as of 2021, she serves as Associate Curator.^[1]

In 2017, Cheek released the self-titled L'Rain on New York City-based^[24] label Astro Nautico.^[9] She composed and performs vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, bass, samples, and percussion on the album;^[25] L'Rain also features Alex Goldberg, Jeremy Powell, Kyp Malone (of TV on the Radio), and Andrew Lappin, who co-produced the album with Cheek.^[10] Pitchfork included L'Rain among their 20 Best Experimental Albums of 2017,^[3] and Bandcamp Daily listed the release as #10 in their Best Albums of 2017.^[4] L'Rain's second album, Fatigue, was released on Mexican Summer in 2021.^[11] The album met with wide acclaim, with positive reviews from outlets including Pitchfork^[5] and NPR.^[13] Cheek provides vocals and plays guitar, bass, synth, keyboards, piano, percussion, tape effects, and airhorn on the album, which also features an expanded roster of twenty collaborators.^[12]

In July 2021, Cheek performed at Mass MOCA after a week-long residency.^[26] She toured with Black Midi in the Fall of 2021 ^[27] and will be touring with Animal Collective in Spring 2022. ^[28]

Musical style[]

L'Rain often layers and loops her vocals, and her work frequently features samples from her collection of hundreds of field recordings, some pitch-shifted or otherwise manipulated beyond recognition.^[1] She has spoken in interviews about her work's tendency to evade^[1] or reject^[2] categorization, saying that she is "more interested in a Barthes, Death of the Author, approach to genre",^[29] values illegibility,^[2] and seeks to complicate assumptions about the relationship between identity and aesthetics: "I’m hyper-aware of how marketing and packaging happens for Black people and women and Black women [...] I like feeling a sense of agency in how those stories are told".^[12]

While Cheek is the sole fixed figure in L'Rain recordings and performances, she says the project follows a "more nuanced and collective [model]" than that of the "lone genius or creator": "I’m trying to find a way to nurture my own voice and singular vision, especially as a Black woman musician, while also acknowledging that I work collaboratively with a team that is essential to the project."^[30] As of June 2021, L'Rain's bandmates are Ben Chapoteau-Katz, Justin Felton, and Alwyn Robinson.^[30]

Discography[]

Studio albums[]

References[]

External links[]

• Official Website
• L'Rain Bandcamp