Included with all LP orders while supplies last: Limited risograph fold-out print of fatigue remedies with contributions from Rena Anakwe, Rachel Day, Angel Deradoorian, Dyani, Joselia Rebekah Hughes, L'Rain, and Ricky Zoker.
Limited edition on crystal waters vinyl, comes housed in a printed inner sleeve. Download code included.
Includes unlimited streaming of Fatigue
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Included with all LP orders while supplies last: Limited risograph fold-out print of fatigue remedies with contributions from Rena Anakwe, Rachel Day, Angel Deradoorian, Dyani, Joselia Rebekah Hughes, L'Rain, and Ricky Zoker.
Black vinyl, comes housed in a printed inner sleeve. Download code included.
Includes unlimited streaming of Fatigue
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 3 days
Purchasable with gift card
$24.99USDor more
about
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my background in dance as a kid. As a part of my training, I had to take a miming class for a year: it was a tool to begin to help us understand the intricacies of theater, and to explore the expressiveness of our faces and bodies. Now, in this moment of turmoil I've found myself returning to this childhood mime moment in a slightly different form; I've become very interested in clowns. I am fascinated by their predilection for entropy and absurdity, and the clown's 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? I also recently learned that my great grandfather was an aerialist in the circus, so there's a personal connection for me too-- I know almost nothing about him, but I sometimes make up stories in my head about what his life could have been like as a Black circus performer in a pre-Universoul Circus world.
The concept for this video came to me fairly quickly: I knew it had to be slow-moving and in Black and white, with a clown or magician performing one action throughout the entirety of the song. I worked with Andy Swartz to fill in all the gaps and to develop the concept: he's been such an incredible creative force behind this project. I couldn't figure out what the main character would be doing during the duration of the song, but it came to Andy in a flash: what if the clown started eating the make-up they were putting on their face? An act that is both resourceful and desperate, playful and disturbing. Contradictory in ways that interest me as I explore the complexity of my own inner universe through music: grieving, silly, joyful, thankful, regretful, angry, paranoid, etc to infinity. "Blame Me" in particular is a song about the guilt I feel around death and grieving: regrets about things I wish I’d done or said while people were alive, things I wish I could have done or said to keep them alive.
I was watching the brilliant videos for Collina Strada's Fall 2021 campaign, inspired by the Animorphs series. One of the models, Atinka, caught my eye, and I looked her up on instagram. The first photos I saw were images of her pregnant, dressed up as a clown. They were such captivating images I messaged her immediately, and she graciously agreed to be in the video. The rest, as they say, is history!
lyrics
You were wasting away, my god. I'm making my way down south.
I was born naked into this world.
You never let me see you cry.
Gave you nothing inside of my time—
maybe that’s what ends your life.
Fought my demons until you were old—
maybe ‘cause you love me.
Thinking ‘bout it lately:
future poison-blooded little babies.
Waste away now.
Make my way down.
credits
from Fatigue,
released June 25, 2021
Written by Taja Cheek
Produced by Taja Cheek and Andrew Lappin
Executive produced and engineered by Andrew Lappin
Co-produced by Ben Chapoteau-Katz
Mixed by Jake Aron and Andrew Lappin
Sequencing and additional production by Slauson Malone
Mastered by Heba Kadry, NYC
Jon Bap - background vocals
Anna Wise - background vocals
Under the mononym L'Rain, Brooklyn native Taja Cheek has quickly become an
acclaimed and sought-after figure in
New York experimental music. A multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and vocalist, her songs are equally rooted in r&b, jazz, noise, and pop: at once visceral, spiritual, ethereal, and urgent....more
Like so many others, this came like a bolt out of the blue and, even though it's well before payday, I had to have this astonishing album on vinyl to prove it exists. The feel of the tunes makes me feel like the Impressions do, Curtis Mayfield, the big spaces and instinctive horns and stuff drifting in and out. Great grooves and I can see lots of ghosts nodding along to this with big smiles on their faces. At last! Anthony Cottrell
