Brooklyn songwriter Taja Cheek aka L’Rain is releasing her second album Fatigue next month, and following the glistening lead single “Two Face” comes another new offering called “Blame Me”.
With a title like “Blame Me”, you’d think this would be a song of personal reckoning for L’Rain, and while there are tinges of that in the song, it moreover feels like she’s coming to a place of peace after a tough situation. Her words are imagistic, mingled and double tracked, often obscuring their meaning and leaving plenty open to the listener to interpret, while her angelic voice – a female equivalent of Moses Sumney – delivers a whole spectrum of emotions. One of those most prominent is a sense of quiet triumph, especially as strings and timpani bolster the song’s emotive finale.
On the video for “Blame Me”, L’Rain says: “I am fascinated by clowns’ predilection for entropy and absurdity, and by their general role as the ultimate icon of emotional complexity (the tears of the clown…). There’s also something about “freaks” that make me feel at home: people who are deemed useless, dangerous, or too strange to understand. Who doesn’t feel misunderstood in this time of social media, social chaos, and social scarcity?”
Watch it below or listen to “Blame Me” on your preferred platform.
L’Rain’s new album Fatigue is out on June 25 through Mexican Summer (pre-order/save). You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
