Multi-instrumentalist and composer L’Rain returns with her third album I Killed Your Dog. Described by L’Rain’s Taja Cheek as an “anti-break-up” record, I Killed Your Dog takes the universal pop theme of love as its starting point – bold, bratty and even a touch diabolical – and inspects it through the form of a conversation with her younger self, untangling her relationship with femininity and the formal musical conventions that others have come to expect of her.

“I’m envisioning a world of contradictions, as always,” Cheek explains. “Sensual, maybe even sexy, but terrifying, and strange.” Written amidst heartbreaks from the perspective of an earned maturity, I Killed Your Dog takes the sonic world laid out by L’Rain in 2021’s album Fatigue on a compelling new trajectory. Over-writing themes of grief and identity to consider what it means to hurt those you love the most.

While the specifics may be hidden from view, I Killed Your Dog is an invitation to experience the big emotions of life through L’Rain’s prismatic lens. Pieced together like snippets of found sound, L’Rain is edging towards a practice that resists disciplinary categorization and instead reflects the messiness of the self in all its fullness.