L'Rain

Cheek was born and raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,[9] where she lived with her mother, father, and grandparents.[1] Her father, Wyatt Cheek, worked in music marketing and promotion for entities including Select Records and Kiss FM;[1] her grandmother ran a liquor store;[2] and in the 1950s her grandfather owned a neighborhood jazz club.[10] Cheek's mother, Lorraine C. Porter, taught physical education, health, math, and science in Brooklyn schools.[11] The stage name L'Rain is an homage to Porter, who died before the release of the self-titled debut.[12]

Cheek studied ballet and modern dance at The Ailey School[10] and learned piano, cello, and Baroque recorder before picking up bass in high school,[1] then forming and joining groups that included an Iron Maiden cover band.[10] She attended Yale to study music but dropped the major, citing factors including a lack of diversity among the program's course offerings.[13] She transferred to the American Studies program, where her major included a concentration in visual, audio, literary, and performance cultures;[14] in 2011, she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction.[15] While at Yale she worked as music director of radio station WYBC and booked shows.[1]

After graduating, Cheek returned to New York. She resumed playing in and co-leading Brooklyn bands including Throw Vision;[16] the group released their debut in 2013 and a 7-inch EP in 2015.[17] She also began presenting and curating public art, working with organizations such as Creative Time and the High Line.[13] In 2014, Cheek was a site manager for the Funk, God, Jazz, and Medicine: Black Radical Brooklyn exhibit, installing a radio station in a pink Cadillac outside the Utica Avenue A/C subway station[18] in homage to Jitu Weusi, black nationalist community arts center The East, and jazz nonprofit and festival the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium.[19] The same year, she co-organized "The Kara Walker Experience: WE ARE HERE", a public gathering of people of color at the Domino Sugar Refinery for Kara Walker's installation A Subtlety.[20] Cheek began working for contemporary art institution MoMA PS1 in 2016, with curatorial work including co-organizing the Sunday Sessions and Warm Up series;[21] as of 2021, she serves as Associate Curator.[1]

In 2017, Cheek released the self-titled L'Rain on New York City-based[22] label Astro Nautico.[12] She composed and performs vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, bass, samples, and percussion on the album;[23] L'Rain also features Alex Goldberg, Jeremy Powell, Kyp Malone (of TV on the Radio), and Andrew Lappin, who co-produced the album with Cheek.[24] Pitchfork included L'Rain among their 20 Best Experimental Albums of 2017,[4] and Bandcamp Daily listed the release as #10 in their Best Albums of 2017.[5] L'Rain's second album, Fatigue, was released on Mexican Summer in 2021.[25] The album met with wide acclaim, with positive reviews from outlets including Pitchfork[26] and NPR.[9] Cheek provides vocals and plays guitar, bass, synth, keyboards, piano, percussion, tape effects, and airhorn on the album, which also features an expanded roster of twenty collaborators.[10]

In July 2021, Cheek performed at Mass MOCA after a week-long residency.[27] She toured with Black Midi in the Fall of 2021 [28] and will be touring with Animal Collective in Spring 2022.[29]

L'Rain often layers and loops her vocals, and her work frequently features samples from her collection of hundreds of field recordings, some pitch-shifted or otherwise manipulated beyond recognition.[1] She has spoken in interviews about her work's tendency to evade[1] or reject[2] categorization, saying that she is "more interested in a Barthes, Death of the Author, approach to genre",[30] values illegibility,[2] and seeks to complicate assumptions about the relationship between identity and aesthetics: "I’m hyper-aware of how marketing and packaging happens for Black people and women and Black women [...] I like feeling a sense of agency in how those stories are told".[10]

AllMusic described L'Rain as making "dreamy, genre-blurring music [...], reflecting on grief, change, joy, and resistance through a collage-like mixture of soul, psychedelia, gospel, musique concrète, and numerous other genres."[31] Pitchfork described her 2021 album Fatigue as "painterly and methodical, daubing vocal loops over clattering percussion, sweeping strings, and resonant synths to create a shapeshifting strain of experimental pop."[26] Reviewers have variously identified her style and influences as including free jazz, ambient, noise music, and disco;[12] dance;[26] "psychedelic orchestral pop" and "distorted shoegaze";[3] krautrock, outsider music, and hip hop;[24] R&B and avant-garde rock;[2] gospel, funk, and post-punk;[25] and soul, drone, avant-pop, and musique concrète.[10]

While Cheek is the sole fixed figure in L'Rain recordings and performances, she says the project follows a "more nuanced and collective [model]" than that of the "lone genius or creator": "I’m trying to find a way to nurture my own voice and singular vision, especially as a Black woman musician, while also acknowledging that I work collaboratively with a team that is essential to the project."[32] As of June 2021, L'Rain's bandmates are Ben Chapoteau-Katz, Justin Felton, and Alwyn Robinson.[32]