L'Rain – fata morgana

The world that L’Rain has sculpted across her near decade of work is a sunken one, an esoteric, dreamy take on what pop can be. This is not to say dreamy in the shimmering dream pop sense, this is music that catches feelings before they’re coherent, shifting freely in tone and atmosphere, tendrils of darkness at the fringes ready to engulf everything at any false move. Things are much the same on her latest, fata morgana once again pushing an intensity of feeling through songs that seem to be sunk in gelatinous quicksand, a swirly miasma of elements churning about each other. Into this usual setup is a new lushness, like sun-bleached memories of Minnie Ripperton and Leon Ware, all languorous cymbal rolls and soaks of reverb. It breathes a deeper sense of scale and vibrance to her already broad sonic palette.

While this new sense of colour has stripped some of the dissonance of previous records away, the unpredictability so essential to L’Rain’s style is still here in full force. Songs seem to head towards obvious conclusions then spin away, dissipate or, in the case of july 5th, seem to get run over by a whole other song. It’s a testament to the craft involved that it never feels forced or like the song’s desperately trying to hold attention, but rather natural, simply an artist trusting their instincts to make some of the best music of their career.

Listen to: july 5th, elmyra, birthday