#27 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Ethel Cain
Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
The second new-to-the-Top 31 artist this year is Ethel Cain, the fictional creation of Hayden Silas Anhedönia, from Tallahassee, Florida. Her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter is my #27 of 2022. While I love the song “American Teenager” shown in the video above, don’t be fooled into thinking her music and this album is full of similar pop treacle. Anhedönia’s typical musical style is slow and sultry, and she can be found sandwiched between Lorde and Lana del Ray in the “Jack Antonoff-esque” section of your nearest Tower Records. While she does sound similar to those other artists, Anhedönia differs from her Antonoffian competition in that she produces all her own songs.
She grew up in a tight-knit Southern Baptist community, her dad a deacon at their church, where she and her mom sang in the church choir. This small-town religious upbringing, and how it felt being a suppressed and ostracized non-binary gay teenager in the South is felt throughout the album, if not in lyric than in feel. On top of those already difficult social circumstances, according to Pitchfork she unveiled her true self as a transgender woman at age 20 via Facebook. This ultimately freed her to be everything she needed to create her art. Amazingly, in the interviews I’ve read and watched, she makes it clear that her upbringing was not all pain and difficulty, despite any preconceptions you and I may bring to the table about being transgender and raised in a majorly religious Southern Christian home. There were hard times, for sure, but she also is careful to point out all the good she’s carried forward with her from her days of daily churchgoing.
The dark, dulcet tones that run through the album are punctuated by extremes in volume and excitement, from upbeat songs like “American Teenager,” to the droning, heavy choruses of “Thoroughfare” and “Sun Bleached Flies.” Together, there’s a large soundwave that blissfully compels you through the full 76 minute opus. In this KEXP live performance from August of this year, Anhedönia talks about the direct influence that the KEXP live sessions from Florence and the Machine and Daughter (#11 in 2013 and #17 in 2016) had on her sound.
I encourage you to listen to Ethel Cain’s KEXP session. She belts three stripped-down versions of songs from Preacher’s Daughter (plus “Crush” from her equally great 2021 EP Inbred) while playing the piano and her band backs her up on guitar and percussion. It’s otherworldly. Then pick up her debut. It’s a perfect listen for those long cold winter nights.
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28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs
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A single song selection pulled from each album.