Herb Sundays 18: L'Rain [From The Archive ]
An evolving and cosmic set by the multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Taja Cheek.
Herb Sundays 18: L'Rain
Apple Music / Spotify. Art by Michael Cina.
Last week saw a lot of “baker’s dozen” Twitter posts delivered as replies to this very fun prompt:
I’m all for this kind of vulnerable list-making (Herb 47: Gia Margaret passed with flying colors, of course); for me, it beats “What's the best album of X?” or “the top 50 MCs of all time,” which often are just meant to provoke and usually end up unsatisfying. After reading a few of these lists, marveling at the extremely erudite and refined taste of my filter bubble, I, being very mature, threw this grenade into the room:
It’s a bit of a goof, but I sort of stand by it. I love that music taste is aspirational, that we can shimmy up to God a bit with our continued refinement, but I also love the wayward way we refine our tastes, and we have to honor those, too. The actors getting hit up by Letterboxd for their top four films on red carpets hit a similar nerve.
It also brought back a perennial fave playlist for me, Herb Sundays 18, from the archive, which is from Taja Cheek, aka L’Rain. Cheek’s profile is going from strength to strength after sharing one of the most critically acclaimed albums of last year. I also saw that Taja just joined Performance Space New York as Artistic Director this week, another win for all involved.
I’m posting her playlist again today, originally from October 2021, because it’s great and embodies the true Herbal essence. Some songs have already left DSPs (the internet is not forever, people), but I left their ghosts if curious. Cheek told
for Pitchfork the following, which feels tied to today’s theme of loving yourself and your wayward taste eras, your shadow, or whatever you subscribe to in all its awkward and tender iterations.CH: How has your inner monologue changed through different eras?
TC: I’m learning a lot from the younger me, actually. When I was younger, I was always reaching out to my older self, and now I’m like, “Wait a minute, I had something in those days.” I have admiration for not knowing what I didn’t know. I made so much music when I was younger that it’s still a well for me. I never threw out anything; I have pretty much everything I recorded since I was 15. Some of it is so silly and cheesy, but there are no bad ideas. It’s just a bad application.
Herb Sundays 18: L’Rain
OCT 3, 2021 (edited for tense)
Let’s get the facts out of the way. Taja Cheek is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and vocalist and has become an acclaimed and sought-after figure in New York experimental music and beyond. In June of this year, she released her sophomore album, Fatigue, under the moniker L’Rain. Her songs are equally rooted in r&b, jazz, noise, and pop: at once visceral, spiritual, ethereal, and urgent. She also frequently collaborates and has worked with artists, including Helado Negro (Herb 25), Vagabon, Anna Wise, Kevin Beasley, Justin Allen, Naama Tsabar, Sable Elyse Smith, and others.
I first met Taja in 2016 when she was an Associate Curator at MoMA PS1, leading the institution’s performance program, with a special interest in sound. When I inquired with her brilliant former MoMA PS1 colleague Alex Sloane, who helped "book the dome" (PS1 erects a courtyard dome for programming for the colder months), we were introduced. With the summer institution Warm Up and other music-related programming, Taja and the related teams consistently produced some of the most forward-thinking programming around. The list of events is vast, but for me, getting to see one of my art heroes, Terre Thaemlitz, speak remains one of the most moving performances/presentations I can recall. She also helped Ghostly make our Last Crates exhibit/installation a reality.
But that’s just her former day job, back to the music.
It's rare to move from a curator to a globally-feted artist. Usually, it works the other way around. But Taja has found international acclaim for her art on her own terms. This is a further testament to both her talent and tenacity. Taja is no “herb” of course. She's one of the coolest people around, but she’s inviting and giving with her knowledge, and all her work packs in many levels of information and verve, inviting you to participate.
The music of L'Rain is like hurtling through time-traveled space. You watch history fly by you, your life, and the lives of others. It has a disorienting effect, but you come out awakened to bigger possibilities. Taja's HS18 playlist is no different. It rides a spiritual plane and often gives way to prismatic gasps of feeling. A weightless but serious mood. It's the NOW sound that seems to have always been here.
I’ve been hoping for a L’Rain mix since Herb Season 1 and this one doesn’t miss a beat. A Pat Methenty and Lyle Mays 20 minute burner gives way to Space Afrika. Sonny Sharrock sends the whole thing skyward, making room for Alice Coltrane. Lonnie Liston Smith (rest in peace) floats and Todd Rundgren grounds. It’s pretty astoudning stuff.
This NYT interview quote from Jon Pareles captures her intent perfectly, a chance to blur lines of convention and history to create something new:
"Yet in a video interview from her home in Brooklyn, L’Rain was cheerfully down-to-earth. Behind her was a bright-colored tapestry she had picked up long ago in a department store. 'I like bringing weird ideas to mainstream places,’ she said. ‘That’s what I look for in culture.'"
It’s working.
From The Field (3.10.2024)
Ghostly Illuminati Zach Saginaw (Shigeto) has a new weekly show on Detroit’s WDET alongside other local heroes like Liz Copeland (Herb 28) and Waajeed. The archive for Zach’s women-focused show last night, is live.
- the journalist/dj/promoter who has a very good NYC events substack also posted a great female-centric mix for Rinse FM. Tracklist is here.
one of my fave twitter follows (and up and coming producer/DJs) gum.mp3 (who has a new album out now, and dropped an EP for our Spectral Sound label last year) posted a fun mix for a platform I hadn’t seen before, Elevator Music, this weekend:
We love when our friends become successful over here at Herb Sundays, so the continued rise of Jubilee is a blessing. Her Esssential Mix trades in Amercian styles that have a veneer of uncool like Florida Breaks but that in Jubilee’s hands come alive again and feel like a vital part of dance music history. True mastery.
