Unpacking ‘Perverts’: An in-depth analysis of Ethel Cain’s divisive new release
As Ethel Cain released her latest project, Perverts, the prevailing response was that this was the artist attempting to shake off her fans. Made up of 80% drone noises, unsettling whispers and ambient instrumentation, it couldn’t have been more different from Preacher’s Daughter, the acclaimed debut that turned the artist into both a critic and pop culture darling. With more time to dive into the undeniably tricky release and with Cain’s own considerations on the work, Perverts is more than an experiment in pissing off an audience.
I’ll hold my hands up; I wrote it, too. In Far Out’s review of the release, I said, “From start to finish, Perverts is a test designed to stare down that audience as she pushes way beyond the limits and expectations that are consistently assigned to promising new artists.” I stand by that, maintaining that the release is still an incredibly bold move from an artist who “has no fears about isolating the fan base she’s cultivated.” But, aligning Perverts as nothing but an attempt to brush off fans, as if it is nothing but an onslaught of uncomfortable noise like a kind of Mosquito alarm designed to get rid of teenagers loitering around, doesn’t do the release justice.
In the days following the release, there also developed a strange pretension around it that Cain, or Hayden Anhedönia herself, was quick to put an end to. Certain fans were quick to celebrate the fact that their favourite artist was getting rid of the “TikTok fans” or acting as if they were ‘real fans’ because they understood or loved Perverts while treating others who were left more confused as less dedicated followers. As review after review hooked into this idea of the release being a decidedly isolating one, fans scrambled to make sure they were on the right side as if Anhedönia was about to do a mass cull of anyone who didn’t pass her test.
“Is it true you’re trying to push away from the more mainstream sound to draw in a closer and intimate audience?” a fan asked her on Tumblr, to which she replied simply, “No, I just really like drone music and wanted to make some.”
However, as such a bold project so different from the one that made her name, Perverts was always bound to raise questions. Despite being labelled as an EP, it’s also a huge undertaking of a listen, with tracks going well beyond the ten-minute mark. So, while it doesn’t have the storytelling lore of Preacher’s Daughter, it still begs for an in-depth dive into the release, its motivations, and its existence in the mind of Anhedönia and the realm of Ethel Cain.
‘The Consequence of Audience’
Part of the reason why Perverts has been aligned as an audience-losing release is because of a self-penned essay Anhedönia released in HommeGirls alongside the project. Delving into her motivations and the way gaining a huge audience during the Preacher’s Daughter release impacted her view of herself and her work is one part of an ongoing conversation the artist, as well as pop culture in general, seems to be having.
Similar to Chappell Roan’s difficulty with the demands of new fame and the parasocial behaviour of fans, Anhedönia seems to suffer the same discomfort. She told The Guardian back in July 2023 that she would “would really love to have a much smaller fanbase.” During the release cycle and touring and festival circuit for her debut, she admitted to feeling like a “dancing monkey in a circus” where the demands of her fans and expectations on her were beginning to cloud what she wanted and become overbearing.
But this isn’t true of all of her fans. It would be easy to present the artist as an isolated figure who wants to go off and hide in a little dark corner, never speak to anyone who loves her music, and never explain herself. Given that she spends time conversing with her followers on Tumblr and shares insight into her creative mind on YouTube, this clearly isn’t the truth of the matter. Right after saying she wants a smaller fanbase, the key comes from the second half of that comment; she would “would really love to have a much smaller fanbase and kind of go back to where I was aiming for ahead of time.”
A cast of perverts
It seems like the process of making Perverts saw Anhedönia returning to that path. Coming from the rich and in-depth storytelling of Preacher’s Daughter, it seemed to take a while, with the new project going through two stages.
The first was the initial idea for the release. “The original concept for Perverts was a character study about different “perverts”, inspired by reading Knockemstiff,” Anhedönia explained on Tumblr. She referenced the book by Donald Ray Pollock, as well as Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison and more. Initially, this was going to be another deep storytelling release with another cast of characters. “A sex addict, a pedophile, an arsonist, a sedative addict,” she explained, originally planning to dive into a different figure on each song. But as the process went on and she seemed to get back on course, closer to her original plan, it evolved into something different. However, ‘Punish’ and ‘Amber Waves’ remain from this early vision, each telling a different story.
Ethel Cain, the ambient artist
The key thing to this whole project is that long before Preacher’s Daughter, before ‘Crush’ or ‘American Teenager’ aligned Ethel Cain as an alt-pop star, she was into ambient music. Members deep in the artist’s cult know of Ashmedai, her ambient soundcloud project that has been an ongoing source of intrigue. Looking back now, Anhedönia had nearly enough leaked this entire release on there. Uploaded over a year ago, track ‘006’ is ‘Etienne’, ‘013’ is ‘Thatorchia’. Bits of all these nameless experiments have found their way onto the record.
So, while fans used to hearing Ethel Cain as a lyrically led artist belting ballads were left confused by this new move, those deeper into the lore know that this side of her sound has not only existed for a long time but is perhaps the true heart of the artist that she always planned to get back to.
The album’s true nature
“Is it supposed to scare us?” another fan asked the artist on her Tumblr. As another comment many reviews pulled out, Perverts feels unsettling, even terrifying, especially to those new to drone sounds or not used to the lingering atmosphere of ambient works. But, once again, that was not the purpose.
“Not really, at least it wasn’t my intention,” she replied, “Perverts is an erotic project to me personally. All drone music, for me, is part erotic, part meditative. It’s deeply indulgent and euphoric for me, in different ways for different tracks.” Similar to the way David Lynch seems fixated on the buzz of electrical wires, using them to add to the often seductive tension of his unsettling worlds, there is something sexy about it for Anhedönia, too. Perhaps in the way, it keeps you hanging on, waiting for something, or in the rumbling, vibrating noises that keep coming and coming, Perverts isn’t a project designed to scare but to thrill, tease, and turn listeners on.
“I’d drive up the river in the middle of the night and sit there for hours, admiring the sheer might of the towers and how beautiful and resolute they stood against the grey night sky,” she wrote online as a strange love letter to Bruce Mansfield plant, an industrial powerplant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. “Perverts wouldn’t exist without Bruce Mansfield,” she continued, “They became a beacon of religiosity, of sexual liberation and enjoyment, of contentedness. When I would drive home, I would masturbate in the dark and think about them and only them.”
So, in some way, Perverts is one big love song between Anhedönia and her “concrete boyfriend”, the darkness that surrounds eerie industrial landscapes, the noise they make and all the feelings found in that unsettling place where the artist clearly feels not only most at home, but most creative, releasing Perverts as a project that returns her to sort of art she was always drawn to and interested in making.
