Taja Cheek deploys a broad spectrum of sonic experiments to better articulate the torments of the era we are living through.
Everything begins with a flicker of radio interference, jittering and eventually revealing a message: “I keep trying to start” (“J’essaie sans cesse de commencer”). This message, rising from the digital void, belongs to Taja Cheek, aka L’Rain, an American producer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, and above all, the author of a staggering discography since the release of her debut album in 2017.
Mirroring Daniel Lopatin, another devotee of contemporary collage who dedicated an album to the therapeutic mysteries of radio (Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, 2020), L’Rain’s audio transmissions toy with our relationship to recorded music. Like the pioneer of the elusive vaporwave, the tracks that “keep trying to start” by Taja Cheek imply that pop is less about form than about evocative power.
A Core of Optimism to Survive in a Hostile Environment
With Fata Morgana, her fourth album, the music by Taja Cheek and her collaborators, Ben Chapoteau-Katz and Andrew Lappin, gestures, in its own way, toward a Pioneer plaque—those two minimalist engravings sent to the far reaches of the galaxy, intended to embody, for any encountered entity, a condensate of humanity and universality. Like that patchwork, the kaleidoscopic collages of Fata Morgana invite listeners to try to pierce their apparent mystery.
Pop cut-ups, along with elements of dancehall, metal, electro-acoustic music, gospel, and jazz reminiscences, her tracks express a simultaneously contradictory relationship with the world and a yearning for transcendence. Inspired by the resilience of portions of fauna and flora to endure in inhospitable environments, the chaotic universe of this new record hides a core of optimism that radiates, imperfectly perhaps, outward. Forged in the magma of what she calls a “social malaise” and the march toward a conservative culture and fascism, Fata Morgana relentlessly, and through sonic exploration, works to bring forth the soundtrack of this troubled era and the struggles that flow from it.
Fata Morgana (Mexican Summer/Virgin Music Group/Universal). Release on August 14.
