Ethel Cain - Perverts (Album Initial Thoughts)

I've heard two songs from her before - the feature she had on Ashnikko's song Dying Star, and Unpunishable.

Perverts

Over 12 minutes - already interesting. And the album is 1,5h! I need to listen to this in two parts, I only got about 45min now.

There was an intro and then we have a lot of silence, accompanied by occasional foley and robot-/astronaut-sounding female voice. I don't know why but I'm picturing a lone human explorer entering an unknown planet they just discovered.

I kind of hope she does a music video, and kind of don't. I want to know what her vision was, but then again, I'm getting my own mental vision.

Also, I can't make out the lyrics, I need to look them up at some point when she releases them. If she does. I don't know how she operates. If she doesn't, that's fine. Them being kind of a mystery works too.

I think the point of this song is to set the scene for this album.

I wonder why the song is called Perverts... 🤔

Punish

Very ambient, but we got a piano and singing. So it's less ambient and closer to a traditional song than the previous one.

This one was apparently a single release and has a music video.

On the latter third, we get some heavy droning distorted soundscapes. I like how they change the atmosphere of the song from a calm, almost romantic piece to a melancholic one.

Housofpsychoticwomn

Now I feel like I'm underwater. How the sound travels underwater is how these sounds sound like. Very ambient again - no singing, no intruments or notes.

The higher-pitched sound in the background/above is annoying. The "swirling" sound makes me feel anxious. But then there's a voice saying "I love you" over and over again... A sentence that should be soothing makes me feel trapped when accompanied by these sounds. Even the song name is Housofpsychoticwomn. So anxiety is what she intended for me to feel when listening to this. And the 13min lenght, too... It's very long for a song, which adds to the claustrophobic feeling. You can't escape it to another song. I mean, technically I could, that choice is one click away. But I choose to stay... Does that make me psychotic as well? For wanting to stay under the suffocating weight of her obsession over me?

I like this song. It's an experience. An anxiety-inducing, claustrophobic feeling, but I am in control of leaving. It's a safe space to explore hard feelings, and the option to leave and end the feeling makes me feel empowered.

Vacillator

I feel relieved, from the previous song being over. A cathartic feeling.

This was some strange, repeating sounds. I think they're distorted drum sounds. I hate the silence in between. There's a white noise in the background, as if it was recorded in one take, but there's gaps. I hate the gaps.

Her singing and the harmonies are so beautiful <3

(My mind wandered back to Housofpsychoticwomn. There's a possible second layer to the song - all she does is say "I love you", and that "alone" is enough to make me anxious. Why? What is she doing wrong?)

"If you love me, keep it to yourself." Wow. I guess she's answering for me. It could be a number of things. The love could be overbearing, or "I" could have such a low self-esteem that "I" don't know how to process that love. I don't love myself, so her love feels inauthentic. Or it could feel like I have no space to exist, she's everywhere. The overbearing. Or if I don't love me, but she says she does, it could feel inauthentic. "Why would you love me, there's nothing to love!"

-- Unfortunately, I have to take a break here. Gotta go to work. Will continue when I get off. So if there's a disconnect in thought processes, that's why. --

Onanist

Onanist is a fancier word for someone who masturbates. I see a parallel to the first song, Perverts.

I like the soundscapes this song has. Simple melancholic piano melody, a little bit of distortion and ethereal female vocals.

Pulldrone

Longest song thus far, over 15min.

It's a freeform poem / meditation thing. Unfortunately, I'm too tired to fully focus on what she's saying.

There's an annoying background noise. Like the sound electricity sometimes makes, but louder. I had to pause the song for a second to make sure it's coming from the song and not the bus I'm on.

I guess that sound is the "pulldrone". It's getting louder and louder. And she stopped talking, now it's just the pulldrone. It sounds like someone's drilling a wall.

It's interesting in a way, but this song doesn't hit me like Housofpsychoticwomn and Vacillator. It's modern art, and IMO, you either get any given modern art piece or you don't. Those ones I got, this one I don't get. It reminds me of annoying sounds like electricity and drilling. The only reason I keep listening is to hear if there’s something in the end. The sounds get progressively more choppy and then they pick up again and go full speed, and then chop again. The choppyness is even more annoying.

Etienne

So refreshing to hear actual instruments. Sounds like a piano, but between notes I hear as if fingers strumming across guitar strings before they play another note? And a pleasant white noise in the beginning. It feels organic and present, as if this mystical piano-sounding guitar is in the same room with me.

Then there's an annoying high-pitched washing machine sound in the back, I don't like it. Again, had to pause to make sure the bus isn't making that sound, that it's the song.

It's very repetitive, barely any changes. Guitar starts playing properly about halfway. Without the high-pitched sound, this would be calming. The sound ruins the mood. I get no peace.

If this is about a woman named Etienne, then I think she must seem like a calm person to outsiders, but people who really know her, who write songs about her, see that there's something off below the façade. Sorry not sorry, Ethel, if I got that wrong.

Thatorchia

She really loves her droning sounds, huh?

There's this one metal band that does it a lot, called Sunn O))). And when I had just started dating my now-fiance and we were in that lovey-dovey phase where being away from each other for 12h is simply too long, he had to work at this free outdoors concert that was all ambient music. So I went there, to sit on the lawn, get drunk, listening to music like the stuff on this album and staring at him from afar (letting him work in peace). So, I have a little experience of ambient music.

This song's alright, nothing's too annoying, the vocals are beautiful, actually.

Amber Waves

Smooth transition through white noise.

I think this instrument is a bass? It's a lower sound than guitar, but I hear the strumming again. There might be multiple instruments. The vocals again, just... wow. 

I like this song. Very organic sounding, but I think in this song it's real - it's not just white noise and digitally made intrument sounds stacked to sound organic. I could be wrong, either way. It could all be digital or all be recorded irl. I don't know much about Ethel. I know she's a big artist in the queer scene and that Ash, whom I adore, was stoked to work with her.

In conclusion

I liked this experience. It's been a while since I last heard ambient music or noise music. I love people who push the boundaries of what can be considered music. I think that as long as there's sound, it's technically music. Same with art - even if you draw a dot on a piece of paper, it's art. But, art is always subjective. Some people will see that dot and not consider it art, or hear this song and not consider it art, because they themselves don't get the artistic value of that piece. To me, even art I don't get is still art.

Ambient and noise music are inspiring in the sense that they are pure artistic expression. They're like the music version of abstract visual arts. They depict things regular instruments and notes can't.

I liked most of these songs. I didn't like Pulldrone - the sounds were annoying and I didn't get it. 

I especially liked Perverts, the way it painted a picture in my head. Even though I don't get what's perverted about it.

My favorite songs were Housofpsychoticwomn and Vacillator. I think they need to be listened back to back, I think Vacillator is a response to Housofpsychoticwomn. I pretty much already wrote what they made me feel, I don't have anything to add. 

As a whole. I enjoyed it. It's very different and artistic. I think critics are gonna love this, Ethel fans are going to like it, but the general audience won't get it.

Ps. Sorry if I jump back and forth between topics - talking about one thing, then another, then going back to first topic and then back to the second one - I haven't been able to focus at all today. My anxiety manifests in this way sometimes.