Ethel Cain, the 26-year-old breakout alternative-rock musician behind 2022’s cult-played album Preacher’s Daughter, has returned with a sophomore record titled Perverts.
Cain, the stage name for the Florida-born artist Hayden Anhedönia, wrote, produced and recorded the 90-minute effort between Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, and Tallahassee, Florida, throughout the last year. The nine-track project sees Cain explore negative sonic spaces, which include but are not limited to mining drone, slowcore and ambient sounds, alongside her deepest inspirations yet.
In a statement on the record, Cain says, “Poke a hole in yourself and see what comes out. Don’t tell anybody what it is but keep a little in a tiny glass jar under your bed. Cover all the windows and walls with dark fabric and slice yourself into a circle, multiple circles in the middle of the room. Make it hot and suffocate yourself. Go into the woods and look at how many lines there are. The entire world is about lines and where they intersect.”
“There is still time to go into the room where there is nothing and stay there forever but know that while you retain freedom of action, so does the world retain freedom of retaliation,” she continues. “You are not immune to consequence. You can do whatever you want if you can handle the return. And if you cannot, then you should hide away so no one sees how hard you cry if you can’t. It’s ok to be weak. You were born like this for a reason.”
Listen to Ethel Cain’s Perverts on Spotify and Apple Music below, and stay tuned for the singer’s “Vacillator” music video, out tomorrow, January 9.
