Does anything sound like L'Rain?

Yeah I thought of Embrya too - though I think that has a somewhat similar relationship to L'Rain as Mr Twin Sister (in part b/c Embrya is much more groove-focused and tight than most people normally allow).

For the purpose of this thread I expect imago probably is focused near-exclusively on "the ability to conceptualise and execute complex music".

I see that with L'Rain obv but it's a feature that doesn't necessarily attract me (though I don't find it off-putting either).

Typically when I enjoy music that could be described as complex, it's not the complexity per se but the density (rhythmic, chromatic, lyrical) that I'm actually getting off on - and something can be both dense and smooth at the same time.

complexity without sensitivity is worthless - and the complexity here is harnessed to provide that dense, smooth, deeply psychedelic experience you describe

i don't want schoenberg or vdgg posted here fhs! mr twin sister and maxwell are both very much getting at it. the intensity of the dream.

going through this album again this morning

such a wonderful thing :')

imago i'm sorry - i was wrong about this album

the last bastion of dissent has fallen, now only glory and acclaim for l'rain

lol <3

the pitchshifting section of the opening track is so utterly amazing

there's quite a lot of pitchshifting on this album i guess. makes me wonder why more people don't try it. guess they don't want their music to sound like a full heaven-dream

i keep seeing new releases by an artist called l'orange for a second and get excited before realizing that they're not actually l'rain

https://lrain.bandcamp.com/album/fatigue

hype

*triple-checking that this is l'rain and not l'orange*

oh, sick

this preview track omg

Wonderful news!

Wow, v cool

Spellling isn't the only haunted art pop soul artist releasing an album tomorrow!

i could do with a good day

so excited for this

They also have a good track on Modern Love, the recent Bowie trib (which is mostly good, 12 out of 17 tracks, incl. a lot of songs I hadn't heard before, and beyond Bo's own vocal limits):
https://bbemusic.bandcamp.com/track/move-on-l-rain

New album is really good. I love how the songs drift and morph but retain some kind of coherence, it doesn't just feel like randomly scattered pieces.

I can't stand L'rain

jk

Can't believe it took three years of this thread for someone to make that joke.

new album is good but absolutely nowhere near as good as the first one imo, it feels much less dreamlike, the emotional palette has been squashed a bit, viz. the title

It's more jagged, yeah. Don't know if it's not as good tho. I'm digging it.

Kill Self into Two Face is awesome

that was my favorite stretch on first listen (the "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah" part on "Kill Self"!), though "Find It" also gave me a first-time-I-heard-"Daniel" feeling

I love a good palette-squashing, definitely seems intentional

def a harsher more frazzled/fractured sound but seems appropriate & i'm feeling it, will open up all kinds of ways i'm sure

can't decide if tripping to this one would be a great or terrible idea

the new one is fine but doesn't really deliver on the promise of the debut in the way i would have expected from a follow-up, i agree the debut was better.

i think it's too early to say which of her two albums i prefer, but the overwhelming response to this one sure seems a case of the hype machine working overtime because they feel dumb for neglecting the last one

Yeah, kind of a normal cycle. But this is also a very good album imo. Interesting to listen to it alongside the Spelling and new Sault — obviously they're all very different, but they have a somewhat similar kaleidoscopic approach to genre and song structure?

Oh shit AOTY

Wow I better hear it.

Getting a lot of play

Grim

Today in European racism: we try to bring guitars onto a @britishairways flight as we have on small flights this whole time and get told that we cannot. We protest, and the airport worker gets rude and mean. A white person stands up and tells him to stop- that it seems racist.

— Taja / L’Rain (@lrain0000) November 23, 2021

She had a terrible experience in Brussels too, during a festival she was playing

(I was at the London show; it was superb and nothing was amiss)

That’s wild. Just traveling with guitars?!?

maybe i've just been subconsciously influenced by its high placings in EOY lists, but I've been finding myself returning to this record over and over again this past week. It's not usually the kind of record I get very into, but, in short, what I think draws me into it is how, every time I listen, there's new things I pick up that just blow me away. that saxophone in Suck Teeth, the bass rumblings that open Find it, those bleep bloop sounds in Round Sun.. there is just *so much* good stuff packed into these 30 minutes

And that final minute in Find It? holy shit. it never gets old.

let me score a movie. I won’t fuck it up.

— Taja / L’Rain (@lrain0000) July 20, 2022

Giving Fatigue a first listen right now and feeling the joy of discovery. I've never heard anything quite like it. There is so much going on here.

shit this is why i got back on ilx, ever since i heard the first l'rain album i have wanted to hear more and i keep getting l'rain and l'orange mixed up and l'orange is good but isn't l'rain...

I only caught the last 10 minutes of her live set at Big Ears but it makes me ache with regret I should have seen the whole thing.

thanks for this reminder. she played where i work in the spring so i had a sweet moment of discovery, and need to follow up. breathtaking.

Oh god, you must catch her live

👍👍

I still think that Fatigue is basically a good album and the debut is all-time greatness, if any of you haven't heard it yet

Vote for it in the 10s poll!

https://lrain.bandcamp.com/track/new-years-unresolution-3

sounding v promising

love this

feels like she's somehow brought back some of the floaty psychedelic bliss of the first album and wedded it to the more hectic and fractured power of the second

only hearing this now but loving it

ooh this new single is like a GAPDY-era psych-pop song except good :p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjdtlFrI7N0

Wow, this is gorgeous.

lol i definitely get what she means by referencing the strokes in relation to this

pretty good

I honestly thought of The Strokes!! Without reading any of the blurb

I want a Human Synthtipede.

Am I wasting time looking for cds by the band. Still the way I consume music in my bedroom at least

huge step up from fatigue fuiud

If Discogs is to be believed, she is not a fan of the CD format. (Believe me, I keep checking, too!) If anyone interviews her in this or a future cycle, you should ask her about it.

Firing this up now!

probably her best yet though it's still a bit fragmented with the interludes

I just like having the physical media so I can rediscover it a while after I last played it and think oh wow should have played this more.
Apart from having the thingto play at the time.
A set of audiofiles needs a different player.

But have enjoyed what I've heard so far.

i'm not sure releasing cds makes much sense at all for indie acts below a certain level of popularity

probably not but would help me.
I#m still consuming music that way. & need something to listen to in my bedroom.
& does mean longevity to me.

Even some fairly low-key indie artists sometimes sell CDs via Bandcamp (looks like L’Rain just has vinyl, tho)

Is l'rain's new album the second King's new album which will never be released?

The interludes feel pretty effective here, I think. "I Hate My Best Friends" like a bit of fresh air at that point of the record.

Not everything here works perfectly (and maybe I'll end up liking Fatigue more when all is said and done?), but it's quite apparent that L'Rain actually loves (or perhaps is just very very driven) to make music. She's always happy to entertain another idea. Not a lot of "will this do?" on her records.

Bravo.

Did we ever answer the question in the thread's title?

Or has anyone come along in the 5.5 years since who fits the bill?

think we decided keiyaA wasn't too far off, that's as close as I can think, still not that close

I relistened to the new one last night for 2023 list ordering purposes, was lovely

"Pet Rock" reminds me of Unknown Mortal Orchestra a bit

last year's corinne bailey rae album was on a somewhat similar wavelength