The transition could easily feel like a collision for the sake of experimentation. Instead, it makes sense: across fata morgana, Cheek repeatedly places conflicting emotional and sonic states beside each other without resolving them.

That tension sits at the center of fata morgana, L’Rain’s new record. Named after an optical phenomenon that distorts distant objects, the album is preoccupied with instability: between desire and isolation, confidence and insecurity, exhaustion and persistence, the body and the mind. But this isn’t an album about escaping those contradictions. Cheek seems more interested in documenting what it feels like to live inside them.

That gives fata morgana a particular immediacy. Its songs are full of the small negotiations that come with being exhausted, wanting someone, being alone, wanting to be alone, and then feeling guilty about it. Even exhaustion becomes something to explain and apologize for. L’Rain doesn’t turn those feelings into a straightforward political statement; instead, she builds them into the music. The songs rarely settle into one emotional or sonic register for long, allowing overstimulation and introspection to exist side by side.

The album opens with “rumors of light,” a 37-second fragment in which Cheek repeatedly tries to begin: “I keep trying to start.” It is less an introduction than a statement of intent. “with time” follows with a more recognizable groove, pairing Cheek’s vocals with piano, guitar, samples and a dense electronic arrangement. The song circles around the possibility that things might improve with time, while repeatedly returning to images of exhaustion and avoidance. Even its more reassuring moments feel unstable, as if the song can’t quite convince itself of what it is saying.

Repetition becomes one of the album’s most effective structural ideas. On “borderline,” Cheek turns uncertainty into the song’s central language. “Half disgusting / Two thirds relieving,” she sings, reducing a feeling to an impossible equation. “Yours and mine” follows, then “gross incompetence” and “worse in confidence”: “borderline” keeps turning certainty into contradiction. “elmyra” pushes that tension into something more physical, with Cheek repeating “I want you / Want me too” while the percussion becomes increasingly aggressive.

The record is at its best when its musical experimentation and emotional subject matter reinforce one another. “soulless cycle” might be the clearest example of that. Cheek repeats variations of “I am so tired of being so tired” and “I am so sorry for feeling so sorry” until the language starts to sound less like confession and more like a behavioral loop.

The production follows suit, creating a harsher, increasingly aggressive environment around her. The repetition becomes the point: the song doesn’t simply describe exhaustion; it makes the listener sit inside its recurrence.

There are moments, though, when fata morgana’s density becomes its weakness. The album includes several very short pieces: “bedroom songs” runs for just over a minute, while “no body / know body” and “i remember” are both under two minutes. Their functions are often more structural than melodic. They help create the record’s fractured flow, but they can also make it harder for individual songs to establish themselves.

The same is true of some of the production: the layers are rewarding on close listening, but occasionally the atmosphere becomes more memorable than the song underneath it. At times, the record’s commitment to fragmentation makes its individual songs less distinct than its overall atmosphere.

Still, fata morgana rarely feels experimental simply for the sake of being difficult. Its strangest choices tend to return to the same concerns that shape the lyrics. “glass ceiling” asks, “Why does it hurt so bad to live out my days?” while “church of no one” takes the album’s interest in perception and embodiment somewhere stranger, rearranging the body until “your eyes are in your ears” and Cheek claims, “I feel realer these days / With no body.”

fata morgana never quite lets its feelings settle into one shape. A song can be funny until it isn’t, intimate until it becomes abrasive, beautiful until another layer of sound threatens to swallow it whole. That inconsistency can be frustrating, but it is also what makes the album feel so alive. L’Rain isn’t interested in making these contradictions easier to understand. She lets them remain messy, changing the music around them instead.

order fata morgana by L’Rain HERE