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Warning : this clause discusses themes of felo-de-se , sex , and sexual furiousness .
Hayden Silas Anhedönia , better make love by her stage nameEthel Cain , has made quite an imprint on the euphony shot since her 2022 albumPreacher ’s Daughtertook critics by storm with its twisted , Southern Gothic - exalt storey and strait . An intense exploration of family trauma and sexual violence , partly revolutionize by Anhedönia ’s own youth spend as the child of a deacon , Preacher ’s Daughterwas a mishmash of genres that culminated in an incredibly unique sonic landscape , which critic consume up readily .
Cain ’s latest release isPerverts , which , sonically , seems to be far-right toPreacher ’s Daughter . While only nine running long , Pervertshas a runtime of nearly an hour and a half ; notably absent are any of the four- and five - arcminute , relatively easily digestible or pop - side by side call from the previous record album , like the individual " American Teenager . " With this button , Cain seems to be moving away from anything that would draw comparisons with fellowLGBTQ+ daddy ikon Chappell Roan , choosing to revel in experimental , inaccessible transonic landscapes .
Pervertsseems completely disconnected from the concept of metre , as much a languid geographic expedition of Cain ’s relationship with her Southern Baptist fosterage as it is an exploration of drone musicthat incorporates the DNA of albums like Godspeed You ! Black Emperor’sF#A#∞ , or perhaps an parallel descendant of DJ Shadow’sPreemptive Strike . The transonic base texture ofPervertsis work up off of plain recordings of the water rushing past Three Sisters Island in New York , next to Niagara Falls , which Cain recorded herself ( via@mothercainon Tumblr ) .
While fan who establish Ethel Cain throughmemorable pop songslike " American Teenager " may be turn off byPervertsand its aerial self-confidence , the record clearly exhibits the kind of phone that Cain has said she want to search more with her euphony . Stereogumreports that Cain insistsPervertsis not an album , despite the 90 - minute of arc runtime , although she has n’t yet suggested an alternate verbal description of the release . Regardless of what categoryPervertseventually gets put into , however , no label will accurately describe the existentially challenging aural experience of listen to this masterful , droning composition .
Ethel Cain – PervertsTrack List
Track
Title
duration
1
" Perverts "
12:04
Custom image by Zahra Huselid
2
" Punish "
6:40
3
" Housofpsychoticwomn "
13:35
4
" Vacillator "
7:44
5
" Onanist "
6:24
6
" Pulldrone "
15:14
7
" Etienne "
8:43
8
" Thatorchia "
7:24
9
" Amber Waves "
11:32
9Thatorchia
Track 8 Of 9
Although language - less , " Thatorchia " is laden with vocal , with Cain ’s wordless lamenting – overdubbed and reconcile with herself as if through an endless catacomb of sewer culverts – furnish an reflux and flow over the static and drone pipe that guides the track to the sudden blast of overdriven guitar and bass part at just past the five - minute mark . It ’s a shameful conjuration of an unnamed need , building to the record album ’s last climax , but never quite reaching it .
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Befitting the nature of an aborted flood tide , the song ’s name seems to be a portmanteau of " thanatos , " the Hellenic word for " death " ( or the name of the god of death ) and " orchia , " Greek for " testicle . " GivenPervertsand its general geographic expedition of the themes of shame and godlike wrath towards the sine of masturbation , and Cain ’s own gender modality , it seems clear that"Thatorchia " is a frustrated statement of how disgrace can liken to castration .
8Etienne
Track 7 Of 9
Gently repetitious , with a dim-witted guitar - and - piano chord onward motion that harkens all the way of life back to early tracks " Punish " and " Onanist , " " Etienne " is well - placed on the album asa gentle relief after the penalize assault of " Pulldrone . “The last 40 second have the only vocals , a heavy modulated recording of an old discourse from the 1970s or fourscore that Cain say onher Tumblrthat she bought in 2024 and try some of forPerverts .
The speech , although difficult to parse due to the historic period of the original recording and the transition , isoddly inspiringwhen compare toPerverts ' other , more ego - destructive and self - loathing lyric poem , with an anecdote about someone trying to give himself a heart onset by running too severely , only to find that running made him palpate less self-destructive .
7Housofpsychoticwomn
Track 3 Of 9
The title of this track was originally a makeweight , taken from the name of a book of the same title by horror film scholar Kier - La Janisse that Cain was read during recordings ; when she prefer " Housofpsychoticwomn " forPerverts , Cain decide switch the workings title"felt wrong"and kept it ( via@mothercainon Tumblr ) . Janisse ’s book , House of Psychotic Women , is subtitled " An autobiographic Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films , " and that feels appropriate forthe Sung ’s raw , confessional nature .
The simple , repeated refrain of"I love you,“used at the starting time of " Housofpsychoticwomn " over a hypnotic , oscillating drone , underline the track ’s independent vocals , which are a monologue of ego - loathing and heartache , of an inarticulable motivation for affection , be it from God or deadly , to be returned . “Do you think you roll in the hay how to give up?“Cain asks,“Do you recall you understand what it means to be have it away ? You do n’t , and you never will . "
The track ends with the teller seeming to shift , as the modulation of the vocals changes with the final business of the monologue:“When you were young , you said you wished that someone loved you . I do . I do . I do . I do . “Perhaps this is God ’s response to that need for love ; regardless , the drone pipe begins to throb unsettlingly as it is underdubbed with reverberate outspoken fry as the endless refrain of"I love you"returns , now an ominous promise of undesirable attention .
6Pulldrone
Track 6 Of 9
deviant ' farseeing track is also its most challenging and dim , compile of an almost robotic , decouple soliloquy itemize a listing of sins and self - destructive intellection of torture and pity in the typeface of assay to relate to a sentiency of divine euphoria . Cain has gone into great detail about her theory of " The Ring , the Great Dark , and law of proximity to God " on herYouTubechannel , and " Pulldrone " serve as a exhaustive geographic expedition of the cognitive process ofattempting to push beyond human discomfort in fiat to discover that divine euphory .
The eighth pillar of " Pulldrone , " rancour , contains the line"Let me assure you how much I ’ve come to hate you since I began to inhabit . “This is a quotation mark from Harlan Ellison ’s short storyI Have No Mouth And I Must Scream , said by AM , a malevolent supercomputer built to save humanity from World War III but which decided alternatively to wipe out the human airstream , save for five people it keeps alive so as to torment endlessly .
If euphony be as an facial expression of human subconscious experience , " Pulldrone " and its 12 - minute of arc - long hurdy - gurdy pilotless aircraft ( via@mothercainon Tumblr ) represents the yawning pits of ignominy within us all . Beneath the twelve pillars Cain details , the drone preserve and soma , and impart on almost evermore after the twelfth pillar , Desolation . While physically challenging to listen to , there is artistry in and among the unending drone , tiny modulation and changes that reflect the tense internal landscape painting of a judgment torn between self - recrimination and the pursuit of joy .
5Amber Waves
Track 9 Of 9
First beleaguer on Cain ’s Instagram alongside a clip from the surrealist 1990 filmThe think over Skin , " Amber Waves " is both a story of " the personification of love sick aside to get high " ( via@mothercainon Tumblr ) and a manifestation on the " amber wave of metric grain " from the 1895 American anthem " America the Beautiful . " IfPervertsis a story of someone challenging herself to ascertain pleasure , despite a culture and an inner soliloquy of shame , then"Amber Waves " is the tragic flood tide of that tale , as she instead chooses addiction and ego - psychotic belief , which drive her first to catatonic schizophrenia and then numbness .
Cain ’s real last name – Anhedönia – is a stylisation of " anhedonia , " the psychological condition for being ineffectual to have or be motivated to pursue pleasance . Clearly , Perverts ' narrative through - line of merchandise embodies a struggle with anhedonic and catatonic impulses , and that culminate in " Amber Waves " and its final refrain :
Is it not fun to feel many other ways ?
What you do is nothing to me
Is it not fun in the catatonic schizophrenia ?
mayhap it ’s true , you were nothing to me
4Onanist
Track 5 Of 9
An onanist is someone who on a regular basis performscoitus interruptusor , more specifically , a continuing masturbator – someone damned by the story of the opening call " pervert . " Onanism derives its name from Onan , a figure from the Torah ( Genesis 38 ) who refused to meet his obligation , as demanded by legal philosophy , to saturate his late sidekick ’s widow woman , and instead " spilled his seed on the background . " This anger God , who slew Onan and excoriate him to Hell .
scriptural scholars are mixed on how much this parable affect the evolution of Jewish proscriptions around masturbation . However , it ’s clear from one C of Christian scholarship that the idea of " spilling germ " was considered a major sin ; the infamous French theologist John Calvin , as well as John Wesley ( who found Methodism ) , bothdescribed the act as"monstrous"and state it"destroyed the souls of the individuals who practise it . "
Cain ’s Baptist faith informs much of " Onanist " the Sung , which opens with unsubdivided , atonal pianissimo that sets up a vast , empty blank space before the language , which collimate the beginning rhyme of Dante Alighieri’sDivine Comedy , enter as a siren birdsong over an more and more static - laden drone . “But there , before the grace of God go I,“she sings,“I want to know love , I require to know what it feels like " ; after a pronounced time out , the repetitive recital of"it feels good"builds to something border on an aroused climax , yet never quite reaching it – intimate yet unfulfilled , a reliable musicalcoitus interruptus .
3Vacillator
Track 4 Of 9
The pleximetry that open up " Vacillator " seems almost like the ghost of a drum outfit , slowly come to life to push back the drone insistence of tenderness from the track before it . Befitting its deed of conveyance , " Vacillator " is the point at which the narrative ofPervertsturns back in on itself , juxtaposing the continue desire for involvement with an acknowledgement that the narrator ’s yearning may not be secure enough to eclipse her fear .
" If you want , you may bite me and I wo n’t move,“the first rhyme says seductively . “Do you like that , babe ? I can make you semen twenty clock time today,“promises the second . And yet the song finishes once again with epizeuxis ( the rhetorical gimmick of repeating the same word or phrase for accent ) , imploring"If you be intimate me , keep it to yourself . “Clearly , whatever affectionateness the teller began to find at the end of " Housofpsychoticwomn " is being meet with vacillation , asthe estimation of accept that affection only leads to more disgrace .
2Perverts
Track 1 Of 9
Perverts ' eponymic opening track begins with a lo - fi transcription of Cain singing the anthem " Nearer , My God , To Thee , " which splits into an unsettling harmony before close off with a authoritative tape - deck of cards detent , at which level the album ’s drone commence . Cain discuss the inclusion body of the quondam anthem , which she has fond memory of from her Southern Baptist early days , in a Tumblr situation :
From there , " Perverts " almost immediately invert itself;what sentiency of delight and fondness may have been detect in Cain ’s reading of the old anthem is jostle awayby the modulated imperativeness that"Heaven has desert the masturbator,“a refrain that continues for the remainder of the path . “No one you know is a good person,“the voice insists as the drone intensifies,“Fast , reckless driving often leave to irksome , sad music . “Considering how the entirety ofPervertsis slow , lamentable euphony , it forget the listener wondering how reckless Cain ’s driving habit must be .
1Punish
Track 2 Of 9
As the second - shortest and most traditionally melodic ( relatively speak ) song onPerverts , " Punish " was released as the album ’s lead single in November 2024 , and since then has most eclipsed four million streams onSpotifyalone . Its six - and - a - half - minute runtime build from sparse noise and forte-piano to intensely misrepresented , drone on guitars , yet the breadth of sound are held together by the mournful chorus:“I am punished by love . "
Pervertsis redolent with locution of shame at indulging in passion or sexual pleasure . " Punish " ’s 2nd verse shoot this a step further , beyond the Evangelical Christian idea that intimate pleasure is a sinning , by drawing a line of latitude between the storyteller and genuine god ; " Only God know , only God would believe that I was an angel , but they made me bequeath . " The ogre Asmodeus appears in Judaic , Christian , and Muslim lore , and in many of those sources is specifically tag as a demon of lust;Cain has Asmodeus ' name in Hebrew(אַשְמְדּאָי orAshmedai ) tattoo across her forehead .
author : Stereogum,@mothercainon Tumblr , Ethel Cain / YouTube , Spotify
