Ethel Cain has done it again with 'Perverts'!
Unpacking the brilliance of the cult icon's bewitching new project.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as impressed by an artist as much as American singer-songwriter, producer, and indie pop visionary Hayden Silas Anhedönia (otherwise known as Ethel Cain). Known for her raw, visceral lyricism; complex storytelling; indie folk and ambient rock sound; and Southern Gothic aesthetics — all heavily informed by her experience growing up in the pious Deep South as a Transgender woman — Cain started releasing music in 2017 as “White Silas”, putting out numerous projects before rebranding as “Ethel Cain” in 2019 and dropping two EPs that same year: Carpet Bed and Golden Age.
Following her breakout EP, Inbred (2021), which spawned the viral hit “Crush”, Cain would go on to release her official debut album and magnum opus, Preacher’s Daughter, in May 2022 — a sprawling, 75-minute behemoth that is genuinely the best body of work that I have ever heard. The entirely self-produced record tells the fictional coming-of-age story of the Ethel Cain character from her traumatic upbringing to her untimely death and was met with universal acclaim from critics and fans alike, earning Cain a massive cult following online.
Preacher’s Daughter is the first in a trilogy of albums intended to explore the broader theme of transgenerational trauma through the perspective of three generations of women — the daughter, the mother, and the grandmother — but despite teasing a companion EP comprised of outtakes from the album, Ethel Cain would ultimately put the world of Preacher’s Daughter on hold, citing burnout as well as a general discomfort with the overwhelming attention she’s received since putting out the record. Instead, she’s expressed a desire to release a handful of unrelated side projects in the interim, and the first, Perverts, arrived earlier this month.
Neutrally classified as a “project” or “studio recording” rather than an album or EP, Perverts fulfills Ethel Cain’s dream of crafting a record inspired by her love for drone and ambient music. The result is her most experimental endeavor yet, as Perverts, which I would consider to be more of an art piece than an “album” in the traditional sense, is a 90-minute fever dream that combines dark ambient and slowcore with elements of lo-fi folk and horrorcore. The songs are deliberately slow and repetitive, all exceeding five minutes in length (with the longest clocking in at just over fifteen minutes) and all accompanied by droning white noise and electronic buzzing that add to the project’s eerie atmosphere. Only three tracks on Perverts are lyric-driven with the majority consisting of heavily distorted spoken word soundtracked by distant vocalizations that are drowned in reverb. The record is cold, dense, and even scary at times. It’s a difficult listen that’s definitely not for everyone, but conceptually, it might just rival Preacher’s Daughter in its brilliance.
Perverts is built around Ethel Cain’s personal philosophy of “The 12 Pillars of Simulacrum” — based on French philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s book Simulacra and Simulation (1981) and another personal philosophy of hers called “The Ring, the Great Dark, and the Proximity to God” — examining the many different ways that human beings will debauch, corrupt, or “pervert” themselves in order to achieve euphoria with each song focusing on an aspect of the human condition and the method through which it’s perverted.
The otherworldly title track opens the record with a brief, lo-fi rendition of “Nearer, My God, to Thee” — a 19th-century Christian hymn written by English poet and hymn-writer Sarah Flower Adams — and establishes the project’s overarching theme of condemning self-gratification. Specifically, “Perverts” deals with masturbation — a perfectly natural act that is considered heinous and sinful by Christianity (“Heaven has forsaken the masturbator”) — touching on the arbitrary concept of morality (“No one you know is a good person”).
The tearful “Punish” depicts the lament of an unreliable narrator (implied to be a pedophile as confirmed by Cain in a Tumblr post) who believes themself to be righteous despite their own acknowledgment of their perversion (“Nature chews on me”) and likens their ostracisation from society to an angel being cast out of heaven. Throughout the song, the narrator repeats, “I am punished by love”, and pedophiles will often try to justify their sexual appetite for children by co-opting phrases like “love is love” or “age is just a number”, but that is willfully obtuse because what they’re referring to is not love, as it’s not mutual and only benefits the pedophile.
In “Perverts” and “Punish”, sexuality is perverted through actions.
Inspired by a similarly titled book by Canadian film writer Kier-La Janisse, the unnerving “Houseofpsychoticwomn” posits the notion of love or being in love as a form of psychosis and sees the narrator professing their love for someone through a bizarre, barely-coherent rant about how precious and unexplainable love is, making Biblical references to the fall of Satan and the original sin all while repeating the phrase, “I love you”, over and over again, implying that the love is unrequited and more of an obsession rather than a mutual attraction (“When you were young, you said you wished that someone loved you… I do”).
The devastating “Vacillator”, the only song on Perverts with drums, centers on someone with an anxious attachment style, desperate for attention from a partner yet terrified to lose them, so they forgo themselves just to please said partner (“If you want, you can bite me, and I won't move”). In addition to their fear of abandonment, they are also terrified of love itself because the emotions of love are too much for them to handle, so they reject it entirely (“If you love me, keep it to yourself”).
In “Houseofpsychoticwmn” and “Vacillator”, love is perverted through obsession and fear.
The haunting “Onanist” (a Biblical term for “masturbator”) presents a Divine Comedy-esque purgatory where a protagonist, desperate for love and connection (“I want to know love, I want to know what it feels like”), descends into a masturbatory Hell overwhelmed by lust (“It feels good”) — a self-inflicted fate that is explained in more depth by the frightening “Pulldrone”. This is where The 12 Pillars of Simulacrum comes into play. On “Pulldrone”, Ethel Cain lists the twelve pillars — “Apathy, Disruption, Curiosity, Assimilation, Aggrandization, Delineation, Perversion, Resentment, Separation, Degradation, Annihilation, and Desolation” — which, again, describe the different ways human beings debauch themselves to achieve euphoria (moving through “The Ring”), either bringing fleeting moments of pleasure (entering the “Divine Theater”) or becoming a direct pathway to self-destruction (succumbing to the “Great Dark”).
In “Onanist” and “Pulldrone”, humanity is perverted through desire.
“Pulldrone” leads directly into the instrumental tracks “Etienne” and “Thatorchia”. Sampling a sermon from the 1970s, the former represents the start of one’s journey through “The Ring” while the latter represents one moving through “The Ring” from the “Great Dark” to the “Divine Theater” — an allegory for reaching God and obtaining power or knowledge that has the potential to corrupt or “pervert”. Additionally, “Etienne”’s title refers to French architect and visionary artist Étienne-Louis Boullée (best known for his dystopian and often unsettling drawings of temples) while “Thatorchia”’s is a word meaning “the bitter acceptance of the fact that God will let you near but won’t let you stay”.
In “Etienne” and “Thatorchia”, the pursuit of knowledge is perverted through the promise of power.
Our journey comes to an end with the dreamy closing track, “Amber Waves”, on which the protagonist from the preceding tracks, having returned from the “Divine Theater” and becoming so enraptured by the euphoria they experienced there, has resorted to drugs in a desperate attempt to relive that euphoria, however, it only sends them plummeting back down into the “Great Dark” (“I can’t feel anything”). In “Amber Waves”, the expectation of glory is perverted by the disappointment of reality — a bleak yet relatable sentiment that speaks to the way a lot of people feel as they move through life with all of its challenges and contradictions (“It’s happening to everybody”). The final notes of “Amber Waves” seamlessly loop back into the start of “Perverts”, thus completing “The Ring”.
Ethel Cain is a once-in-a-lifetime talent and Trans icon in her own right who I have a deep admiration for. She’s absolutely incredible, and upon Perverts’ release, she hinted at a return to the Preacher’s Daughter cinematic universe — something both I and the rest of her fanbase are very exited about, so stay tuned for more from indie pop’s favorite cult leader.
Perverts is available now across all online and streaming platforms!
Watch the music video for “Punish”: