Album Of The Week: L’Rain fata morgana

Mexican Summer2026Eight tracks in, the new L’Rain album explodes. Like so much of Taja Cheek’s work thus far, fata morgana is largely a procession of meticulously constructed layers, moods, and vibes. It’s an atmosphere you immerse yourself in, only to find incredible songs materializing in the fog. But on “soulless cycle,” the ephemeral sonic palette gets a lot more tangible.From the instant those guitar stabs start panning from speaker to speaker, you know the track is headed somewhere special. Atop a low-end rumble like gnawing anxiety, Cheek unspools a melody that resembles an incantation. “I am so tired of feeling so tired,” she declares. “I am so sorry for feeling sorry.” She locks into a repeating mantra, “I’m a psycho cycle,” until you’re mesmerized, one of many times on fata morgana when Cheek’s words and music are beautifully intertwined. Then comes the boom: a bombastic drumroll, a torrent of distorted guitar, a swell of otherworldly keyboards — a No Age song breaking out from the miasma, unloading and intensifying for two euphoric minutes before dispersing. It’s a storm blowing through, but one that sweeps the damage away rather than leaving wreckage in its wake.All these things are true at once: (1) “soulless cycle” is one of the most powerful recordings in recent memory. (2) None of the rest of fata morgana gets nearly that visceral. (3) If you come in expecting more songs like “soulless cycle,” it may take some time to acclimate. (4) The album would be a triumph even without its hammer-drop moment. I don’t want my enthusiasm for one song to overshadow my love for the rest of the record. The whole thing has me in awe, grasping for superlatives. But I also don’t want to undersell my holy shit reaction the first time I heard “soulless cycle,” and every subsequent time. Months later, it still feels like so many exclamation points strung together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Much of fata morgana feels more like an ellipsis. The album takes its title from a mirage that forms above the horizon line, distorting images until they become recognizable. It’s a fitting description for this music, which pushes the swooning repetition and shapeless drift of past L’Rain albums to new extremes. Whereas 2023’s I Killed Your Dog was Cheek’s self-described “basic bitch album,” embracing poppier tropes within her established experimental framework, fata morgana is arguably her most avant-garde album to date. She has framed it as the culmination of a four-album stretch beginning with 2017’s self-titled and 2021’s Fatigue, not the end of the L’Rain project but a completion of some arc: “I really think of these four albums as being companions to one another, and hopefully whatever I do next will feel like something else maybe.”This collection of tracks is animated by a core question: “How do you grow in a world not meant for you to thrive in?” It’s an especially relevant subject for a Black woman in America, but it will resonate with countless people who are struggling in a society that feels increasingly designed to squeeze the many for the benefit of the few. “More times than not I mean not what I say,” Cheek laments on “glass ceiling.” “Smile hiding when I feel afraid, close my eyes, try to be brave/ Why does it hurt so bad to live out my days?” In working through her dismay over her daily struggle, she says she took inspiration from bioluminescent deep sea creatures and the Rose of Jericho, a desert plant that can survive long stretches without water. The imagery clicks into place when you hear what she came up with in Brooklyn with longtime collaborators Ben Chapoteau-Katz and Andrew Lappin.Cheek is a brilliant singer-songwriter, but her greatest talent may be sound design. She is skilled at capturing vibrations at surprising angles, bringing you inside the music even at its most oblique. Lappin’s mixing job compounds the effect: All throughout fata morgana, noises come in and out of the frame, or they linger in the corner until suddenly seizing the spotlight, or they persist amidst clamor only to be exposed in a silent spotlight when the noise subsides. From the static-laden intro “rumors of light” onwards, the album is a delight on headphones. Song after song, team L’Rain builds out soundscapes that manage to be minimal and lush all at once. Guitar and keyboard arpeggios abound. An atmospheric mist prevails. They often forgo drums entirely, a la Blonde, so that when a programmed beat and/or Timothy Angulo’s kit kicks in, it matters all the more.Cheek’s friend Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto sequenced fata morgana. She did so patiently and deliberately, putting some of the most abstract selections up front. The first proper song, “with time,” unfolds like the Smile or solo Thom Yorke; its piano and keyboard riffs spiral through the shadows while Cheek sings a haunted lullaby, punctuated by manipulated vocals and a squiggly, hyperactive fusion break like a tape rewinding in a cartoon. Her refrain: “I’m a vampire suck the pain.” Then comes “blue,” a voyage into spacious free jazz that plays like an orchestra perpetually warming up, brightened by the reassurance that “shadows can only be made from the light.” Then, on “july 5th,” a gorgeously percolating folk/post-rock hybrid takes a shocking turn into dancehall with assistance from Kingston-born veteran Screechy Dan.As the tracklist progresses, songs like “borderline” and “elmyra” feel less like eerie deconstructions. But they continue to harness the power of a slow build, gradually piling on elements, lending rhythm and texture equal weight with topline melody. In the falling action after “soulless cycle,” fata morgana provides further moments of quiet reflection, like the spidery “glass ceiling,” and surprise genre pivots. On the interlude “i remember,” Cheek seems to be having a breakdown while remembering the euphoria of ‘90s R&B. The track leads directly into “birthday,” a straightforwardly lush example of the form, buoyed by bass synth, wah guitar, and a dreamy sonic array. On an album like this one, in a career like this one, it’s perhaps most startling of all when L’Rain shoots directly down the middle.By the time closing track “church of no one” sets in, the spiritual once again consumes the tactile, dovetailing with Cheek’s conclusion: “I feel realer these days/ With no body/ Don’t know no body/ I want mirror decay.” If I’m properly understanding her, it’s perhaps a bleak endpoint for this journey, a concession that relief from oppression only comes by retreating from flesh, blood, and clarity into a refracted interior haven of her own making, where this world’s ugliness can’t intrude. If that escape is the L’Rain sonic universe, Cheek’s takeaways start to make perfect sense; few artists have more effectively harnessed the power of shapeshifting fluidity and a chaotic blurring of musical norms. Still, I’m grateful for those instances when the mangled, vulnerable beauty of L’Rain’s private world comes violently roaring back into the physical realm.fata morgana is out 8/14 on Mexican Summer.Other albums of note out this week:Phoebe Bridgers' Lost WeekendOpen Mike Eagle & Kenny Segal's Doomed!Sweeping Promises' You Say I RomanticizeCarly Simon's Comes In WavesHovvdy's Big WorldGetdown Services' Massive ChampionMelaina Kol's Okay that’s a great idea because if I do that thenMaggie Rose's Half MoonJungle's SunshineKiwi Jr.'s Blowin’ UpJames Ellis Ford's Lost In Another WorldBenny Blanco's HermosaThe Afghan Whigs' Soft ControlNipsey Hussle & Bino Rideaux's PROLIFICDent May's The Big OneJohanna Samuels' Sorry, KidAyra Starr's StarrgirlLaura Veirs' Temple SongsHIGHSIGH's Once BendDuffy x Uhlmann's Hot CreekIcona Pop's RitualHayley Law's Last SummerSunna Corona's DemigoldWhitmer Thomas' Terminal Crew Of DudesPeace Test's RepercussionCredit Card's Devil's Night / Dead InternetAlex Dupree's Talking To The DogLukas Graham's Good TimesPat McAfee's The Diary Of A Polarizing FigureAda Lea's the end is a wave EPMartha Reeves' SearchingJesse Draxler's Traap Number 9Attic Abasement's Moonlight Passes OnRadiator Hospital's Distorting TimeSparks' Live On The MoonFridayy's TensionMichael Christmas, Chris Crack, & Girl Talk's Don't Come To My House Sharing Your LocationElizabeth Cook's Great TelevisionJudah & The Lion's I Am A PrisonEvil Island's Terraform The AfterlifeMasicka's Foreign ReignAlly Evenson's Speed Kills (All Gas)Smash Mouth's Mercury CometBill Charlap, Jim Beard, Jim Pugh, & Ted Nash's New American SymphoniesDana & Alden's Papa's BoatStrange Lot's Strange LotJon Batiste's Black Mozart (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 2), Monk Meditations (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 3), & Monk Movements (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 4)The Womack Sisters' The Womack SistersGrace Cummings' Bloodhorse!Bajune Tobeta's AnechoicJenna Raine's Jeans, Boys & JesusLiving Weapon's Death In The FamilyChico's ChicoKelly Doyle's ThievesAdam Rubenstein's FirebreakNina Winder-Lind's Wild LoveThe Musalini & 9th Wonder's The Don & Eye 3Cold Light's Coldtron2Dead Tired's Hornets Of FallLiim's A Sunflower Garden In Harlem Is Hard To FindReal Numbers' Was It Always This WayBrendan Angelides' Can You Feel The End Begin?Maryam Turkey's Hiragt El Rouhrommulas' SONOFRHEASILVIABUNNY X's Love On A High FloorOctober London's Love Me For MeWhite Gourd's (To Walk In) Justice (Calls For) StrengthVarious Artists' Sending Hearts To All My Dearies - A Tribute To The Smashing PumpkinsRockabye Baby!'s Lullaby Renditions Of ParamoreLeo Sayer's Leothology: The Studio Albums 1973-Now box setBob Marley & The Wailers Concert Album's Roots, Rock, Reggae: Live At The Hammersmith OdeonVarious Artists' Spring Awakening Original Cast RecordingStephen Bishop's Careless (50th Anniversary Deluxe)Josh Turner's Your Man (20th Anniversary Edition)Boston Manor's The Be Nothing (10 Year Anniversary Edition)Mos Def's The Ecstatic (Deluxe)KATSEYE's Wild EPDjrum's I Wander EP16 Underground's Without A Trace EPRegular Watts' kWh EPZAINAB's Canal View EPAlani's Somewhere Between Saying It EPJust Jayne's Jayne EPHank Heaven's Welterweight EPGenia's Intense Lover EPCutthroat's The Purge EPDerek Thomas' Derek Thomas Live At The Laguna Beach Cultural Arts Center EPTEHYA's A CHANGEABLE FEAST EPKIMIKO's Modern Dance EPSabyna's Unlovable EP