Although I should probably stop, listening to music in scary places elevates the experience
By John Faussemagne
About a year ago, I decided to dive deep into the world of Scott Walker, an artist I had admired for years but never given a proper listen. I loved Scott 1-4, with Scott 4 quickly becoming an all-time favorite. I made my way through his less celebrated releases until I got to The Drift. I had seen people claiming this to be one of the scariest albums of all time, so I waited till nighttime, put on headphones, listened, and I loved it. However, I didn’t find it as scary as everyone claimed. So when I got to his next album Bish Bosch which is said to be equally as horrifying, I decided to go out into the woods in the dark of night to listen. I was living in DC at the time, so I went to Roosevelt Island and what ensued was the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced. The noise-cancelling headphones I wore cut me off from the outside world so any passerbyers on a sunset run made me jolt. As I was walking around the island jolting at any movement that came near me, a family of deer jumped out in front of me. I came face to face with a giant buck that started sneering at me, all the while, the album’s creepy violins and industrial drums in both of my ears gave me a feeling of dread throughout my body. I bring this up to explain that when I started Ethel Cain’s Perverts in the middle of the day, in between classes, I heard the droning sounds of the titular track and knew what I was in for. I paused the album, waited til night, and went to… an abandoned house in the woods with two friends.
This time, I wasn’t alone, which de-intensified the experience. However, I am not complaining, given what happened the first time I tried this out. Before we got to the house, we drove there listening to Ethel Cain’s first album, Preacher’s Daughter, which has a runtime of just over seventy-five minutes. This is important to note because, although Perverts has a runtime fifteen minutes longer than Preacher’s Daughter, it is officially an EP. I assumed this was the case so Cain could separate this project in her catalog without having to create another moniker since it is very different from her other major releases. Given the darker sound, when asked if she was looking to push away from a more mainstream sound, Cain replied that this was not the case and instead she “really just wanted to make some [drone music].” As we arrived at this house, we walked up past the front door and to the one window that didn’t seem to be sealed or boarded. I jumped through the window, sat on a blanket laid down on the ground and pulled out a speaker to start the album.
As the droning in the titular track starts, Cain opens the project singing an old Christian hymn, and I notice a soft red light coming from a nearby house. Within the first minute, you are already placed deep into the world of Perverts. A drone follows with Cain repeating the same lyrics over and over again: “Heaven has forsaken the masturbater.” Masturbation is something that is often seen as heinous in much of Orthodox Christianity, a religion in which Cain grew up. It is a key concept in this album which is used in many ways to show the harms of instant self-gratification, and how it can often be perverse and degrading. As the song comes to an end, and the droning stops, Cain blurts out “It’s happening to everybody.”
The drones continue into the next song, “Punish” which was the lone single for the project. For the first time, we get a semblance of an instrument. As Cain begins to sing, the floorboards beneath me start to shake and I hear a creak come from upstairs. I look at my friends in shock, curious if they heard the same sounds as me. The looks on their faces agreed with me. As the shock subsides and I begin to focus on her voice again I am struck by the lyrics. The narrator is at odds with themself and the sexual deviancy they have led during their life as a pedophile stating “It has always been this way.” They then justify their actions by saying “I am punished by love.” Cain explained her lyrics on Tumblr stating:
“The og concept for perverts was a character study about different “perverts”, inspired by reading knockemstiff. a sex addict, a pedophile, an arsonist, a sedative addict, etc.”
She then goes on to explain that only Punish and the final song Amber Waves were the two surviving songs from this vision, Punish being a song about a pedophile who was shot by the father of a child he had abused. This character has now exiled himself as a form of punishment for what he has done, claiming he is “punished by his love” mistaking it for lust. Near the end, one final lyric jumps out:
“Only God knows, only God would believe
That I was an angel, but they made me leave”
The perverse narrator still tries to justify his wrongdoings. The keywords here are “was,” and “they.” The narrator knows they are no longer an angel, unable to justify what they have done, however, they cannot take the blame, instead placing it onto someone else (possibly someone who abused them as a child).
At this point, as Punish transitions into Housofpsychoticwomn, more noises begin to fill the house. My tinnitus flares and something begins to feel genuinely wrong. The creaks upstairs continue upstairs and Cain repeats the phrase “I love you” over and over again. The melody is frightening, but moving. The drones turn into whirls as this fourteen-minute-long behemoth of a track gains its footing. Cain opts to speak this track, mumbling through the lyrics. The narrator continues to berate someone with the phrase “I love you,” to no avail. Instead of using typical pronouns, the person who is being spoken to is referenced solely as “it,” leaving it up to interpretation of what “it” could be. Given the context of this album, it makes sense that “it” could be referring to God and a human’s one-sided relationship with God. A key point of Christianity is being able to believe without having to see. It is a one-sided relationship built on trust and belief. Many Christians however obsess over God begging to be shown some kind of proof. The narrator doesn’t truly love God, instead, they obsess over him. One big theme shown up to this point is how destructive behaviors are justified and confused with love. While on Punish love was confused with lust, on this particular track, love is confused with obsession.
Outside a car door slams loudly taking me away from the music, I lower the music slightly a bit paranoid thinking someone is near the house. A loud bang comes from the room next to me followed by what sounds like noises coming from the basement. Scared and unsure of what I hear, I convince myself the cold weather and the heavy wind are messing with my head, but certain noises are too convincing. Vacillator starts to play with a drum that sounds like it has been beaten to death. Cain begins to sing beautifully about an emotionally indecisive individual. This is a beautiful track and is a great change in tone as you get a look at someone who is still perverse, but this character is much more relatable than the other narrators we have already seen. They seemingly are unable to be confined to one person stating: “If you love me, keep it to yourself.” Many people struggle with commitment, wanting to feel loved, but not wanting the responsibility of being committed to one person. This brings me back to the lyrics of Punish. No one is born inherently good or evil, instead being shaped by experiences as they grow. The narrator of Punish probably had someone abuse them growing up which led to them becoming an abuser perpetuating the cycle of abuse. In the same way, the personal experiences and relationships the narrator of Vacillator had growing up led them to be emotionally unavailable.
The two people I am with are up taking photos in the house. I could’ve sworn I saw something in the window, but maybe it was light hitting the leaves. Multiple loud crashes upstairs quickly end the photoshoot. We all reacted in shock as the Onanist faded in with a beautiful repeated piano medley until a harmony peeks through the droning. I love the approach taken here to how she sings the intro. It feels like she has to exert effort to pull herself through it before taking moments to wait to start the next line. As her voice builds up, the noises around her build, allowing her to get drowned out. She screams “I want to know love / I want to know what it feels like.” Once the song reaches a peak, the distortion changes and Cain murmurs “It feels good.” Not about the feeling of love, but instead the instant gratification one gets from masturbation.
The following song Pulldrone is the climax. Starting with Cain announcing the “12 pillars of simulacrum,” something she created based on the theory of “simulacrum” by Jean Baudrillard. These pillars are described as the 12 ways humans desire to reach for God. All pillars are key components of the album spoken as a string section builds slowly in the background. This song in particular gives an amazing insight into the album’s creation and Cain’s creative process. When asked about the song, she stated:
“For pulldrone in particular, [I] just hit record, closed my eyes, and then played my hurdy gurdy until [I] felt the need to stop. perverts was a sandbox to really do whatever i wanted so i just did whatever felt good.”
Focusing on the feeling of the song works to its benefit as after she speaks about her pillars, she allows you to sit in what you have just heard. You aren’t subject to any more thoughts, instead, you get a moment to take in the words that encapsulate the album’s themes. While the song might not have the most climactic points, the message almost comes off as a manifesto for the project. Explaining the many obsessions found throughout the album. Around the thirteenth minute mark of the song, the strings slowly begin to die off. At this moment a car sped by the house blinding me from its red tail light, bringing me away from the lyrics back into reality. This felt like a climax of the album, and my time staying in the house. During the song, everything around me felt alive with windows banging and loud noises filling the room I was in.
Etienne features one lone piano with a guitar slowly coming in as the song progresses. If Pulldrone is the climax, Etienne feels like the falling action toward our resolution. This tune is beautiful from start to finish. In the final minute, a voice enters telling the story of a man who wants to kill himself and decides to do so by inducing a heart attack while running for a long time. Eventually after attempting this a couple of times, “He felt so good that he didn’t want to kill himself anymore.” By facing death head-on and continuing to attempt, this man found the beauty in life. While listening, I began to see the beauty in the situation I had put myself in. The creaks and sounds I continued to hear lessened and the architecture of what was still a beautiful house slowly unfolded in front of me. This story began to put me at ease after the previous hour had me shaken by what seemed to be paranormal activity. Being an instrumental song, Thatorchia did the same as the angelic melody sung throughout the track kept me calm despite everything that had occurred. When the project was announced, a fan on Tumblr asked Cain what song she was most excited for her fans to hear to which she replied “eight,” and I can see why. The build that starts around the three-minute mark and continues till the end of the song is a highlight of the project, especially when the droning fades and for a brief moment we get to hear the melody by itself, uncovered from the noise. It almost feels like a release, a quick moment to gather yourself before the conclusion, Amber Waves starts.
Amber Waves follows another case study into a pervert similar to Punish, however this character is a sedative addict. He is throwing away his life to get high. The song presents itself being an inner monologue for this character who has seemingly already lost his battle with addiction. Throughout the track, the narrator constantly says “It’ll be alright,” reassuring himself that everything will work out. Despite this, he sees loved ones leave him and watches time pass him by. The repeatedness of the phrase “it’ll be alright,” begins to seem more like the narrator is trying to convince himself this, rather than that it is true. This character embodies the obsession with substances that so many fall victim to. He still fits the category of a pervert as someone with an obsession, but his obsession is a substance. It is an incredible ending to the project riddled with amazing moments, and I don’t think it is a stretch to call this her best song. As the guitar slowly faded, we stood up from our blanket and left the house from a window. As I jumped out, a heavy wind hit my face, and I noticed a window in an adjacent room that had opened while we were inside. Everyone went their separate ways quietly and I drove back home.
“It’s happening to everybody” was a significant phrase used by Cain throughout the rollout that drew her listeners into the project. No matter who you are, everyone has experience with obsession and perversion. So much of the world is engineered to bring people back repeatedly to form an unhealthy obsession. Not necessarily our fault, but in a way we have all become perverts, hence “It’s happening to everybody.” When asked about the meaning of the project, Cain stated:
“what i took away from the project was i’m still not sure what balance i think is healthiest to strike between neutrality and taking the beating of passing through the ring over and over.”
This quote beautifully illustrates the album. It is unhealthy to continue down the same destructive path, however, it is unrealistic to believe you can simply change who you are. Lastly, while the artistic ability of Ethel Cain cannot be understated, the incredibly talented people whom she worked with elevate the listening experience. Specifically, Dale Becker who did an amazing job engineering the album, Vyva Melinkolya who can be heard throughout the album, and Midwife who plays guitar on the final track. Vyva especially is an incredible multi-instrumentalist who adds so much to this album and her solo music is worth a listen to anyone who hasn’t yet (Unbecoming is one of the best albums of 2023). Perverts is a jaw-dropping project with incredible lyricism and production and some of the best songs Cain has ever released.
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