Somewhere between Chelsea Wolfe, William Basinski, Stars of the Lid and Anna von Hausswolff is the new home for Ethel Cain. There are still these mesmerizing and wonderful folksy structures one could but there is so much more to be discovered on Perverts, some of it very clearly, some rather hidden – but it is such a rewarding record!
Before I start, I have to say that I will not fulfill one of Ethel’s wishes: On ”Vacillator” she repeats timidly one line over and over again - ”If you love me, keep it to yourself”. No, sorry, impossible. This record needs appraisal, for it shows an artist daring to shape into new mirrors, re-incarnating herself and not simply within a new skin, but combining manifold new elements with the mesmerizing things her audience has come to love. And sometimes the structures share amazing nuances with many different bands, let’s just take ”Onanist” as an example – the opening key passage reminds one of the remnants of a long-lost Radiohead track from the Kid A / Amnesiac period and when the whirl of white noise comes in at the end then it might be one of those amazing feedback orgies with which Mogwai used to conclude their sets oftentimes. This is beauty and also disruptiveness, as if trying to show that beauty cannot exists without ugly that it needs both elements. Like breathing and exhaling. Carnal elements of human life.
Ethel has come up with many incarnations of her music before but it seems as if this one is a major step in her development, just like the two aforementioned records changed a lot for Radiohead on their way to become basically untouchable whereas before they had “only” been the next big bang in Indie Rock. Just as Yorke and Co. had outlived their former genre Brit-Pop, Ethel has outlived the Ambient Spiritual-sticker some have tried to pin on her. Yes, this is still in some way an American Gothic album (in the Grant Wood sense, look it up), there is still a lot of spirituality on this record, even though it might not deal with religiousness (although the record title might suggest so) but the amount of Drone elements is surely bigger than before which lends these 90 minutes their amazing width. From spoken word intros to slowly growing Drones it might only be a few minutes (as in ”Pulldrone”) – a reason for the unpredictability of the tracks. Combining this with a sheer unbelievable patience makes for a record that seemingly cannot sit still on the one hand nor let go off something truly beautiful on the other – just look at the Drone part in said track ”Pulldrone”, we get more than 10 minutes (only Taylor can pull off something like that!) of one singular passage that sounds like a beehive dancing on a singing saw (only Ethel can pull off something like that!) - on a track that is the longest one with more than 15 minutes. Generally, track lengths are a thing on ”Perverts” - we get 90 minutes divided into only nine tracks, the shortest being ”Onanist” with 6:24 minutes, ”Pulldrone” the longest and four tracks crossing the 10-minutes-threshold. The fact that each second is enjoyable in a rather haunting way is a miracle in and of itself but it is also a mere fact here!
Over the last couple of years, the American Indie scene has seen many small labels emerge with amazing bands and soundscapes – The Flenser, Sacred Bones, Sisters in Christ – and Ethel Cain’s self-releasing basis called Daughters of Cain might become another one of these stellar strongholds of great music offside the beaten paths. Ethel herself surely is well-connected in the scene as she is accompanied on some tracks by Angel Diaz (aka Vyva Melinkolya) or Madeline Johnston (aka Midwife). This open attitude towards collaborating is another sign of a thriving scene that gives us so much great music over the last few years, it is sometimes hard to follow. You should definitely follow Ethel Cain on her way to carving out her own path between the niches – thus creating one in which maybe only one artist can truly reside, she herself.
PS: A few days ago, the record was still available on Bandcamp, at the moment it isn’t, but you can still listen to it via Soundcloud:
