Ethel Cain and the books that inspired ‘Perverts’
When Ethel Cain’s latest project, Perverts, first came out, there was some confusion. Moving away from the sound she established on Preacher’s Daughter, this new release was built almost entirely of noise music, white noise and sparse, ambient lyricism. While her debut album was a storytelling opus of a concept album that laid the tale out in it’s lyrics, Perverts take a bit more digging but the artist herself has provided a reading list to help.
On her Tumblr, Ethel Cain, or Hayden Silas Anhedönia, is in constant communication with her community of fans. Especially regarding the release of Perverts, she’s released all kinds of insights that have unlocked the project more and more. She shared a love letter to an industrial powerplant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, stating that the release wouldn’t exist without the inspiration of this aerie and magnetic site. She’s discussed other artists she loves, especially in the worlds of ambient and noise music. She’s also mused on her relationship with this record and her fans, making it clear that Perverts is in no way an experiment in isolation but is to her, “deeply indulgent and euphoric.”
From artworks and artist to real life figures and works of fiction, her Tumblr page is a treasure trove for understanding the complex new release. It’s clear that Anhedönia wants to let fans into the project, even sharing a list of books and texts that inspired the making of it.
The first and most essential seems to be Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff. Initially, this book, which looks into the lives of a cast of depraved characters who are, in some way, connected, was going to provide the entire shape of the project. “The og concept for Perverts was a character study about different “perverts”, inspired by reading Knockemstiff. A sex addict, a paedophile, an arsonist, a sedative addict, etc.,” she wrote to her fans. “The project is completely different now but ‘Punish’ and ‘Amber Waves’ are the only surviving demos from it so they’re still about that,” she explained. So while she abandoned the idea of the album being a character anthology, the book’s impact still remains on those two key tracks.
Another essential read gave a name to one song. Kier-La Janisse’s House of Psychotic Women is referenced in the title of track three, ‘Housofpsychoticwomn’. “I was chauffeured into this dark terrain by my parents, but I stayed there because of something in myself,” Janisse writes in the book. That same sentiment feels echoed in the song’s whispered lyrics as Cain sings, “Do you think you know how to give up? / Do you think you understand what it means to be loved? / You don’t, and you never will.”
As the record deals with topics of isolation, social alienation, mental torment and various forms of revulsion and rejection, the books that inspired Anhedönia’s work are literary masterpieces musing on these dark, disgusting and often taboo topics. She looked to the likes of Jean-Paul Satre’s Nausea, or Harlan Ellison’s haunting 1967 post-apocalyptic short story about insane and harrowing torture, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
While the musical world of Ethel Cain has always been utterly and singularly her own, especially on this bold new release, Anhedönia’s insights into these literary inspirations provide a way in and a deeper way to understand the world and tales held in Perverts.
The books that inspired Perverts by Ethel Cain:
- Donald Ray Pollock – Knockemstiff
- Kier-La Janisse – House of Psychotic Women
- Jean Baudrillard – Simulacra and Simulation
- Harlan Ellison – I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
- Jean-Paul Satre – Nausea
- John Bunyan – Pilgrim’s Progress
