Track 1
Perverts
Perverts, the title track, is a rendition of “Nearer my God to Thee,” an old Protestant hymn. The track also incorporates droning sounds (possibly field recordings from the power plant she frequently visited during the making of the EP?) and distorted vocals.
Nearer, my God, to Thee
Oh, nearer to Thee
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me
Still all my song shall be nearer, my God, to Thee
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee
Heaven has forsaken the masturbator
Heaven has forsaken the masturbator
Masturbator
Masturbator
No one you know is a good person
Fast, reckless driving often leads to slow, sad music
Heaven
Heaven
Heaven
Heaven has forsaken the masturbator
Heaven has forsaken the masturbator
It's happening to everybody
Track 2
Punish
According to Ethel’s tumblr (mothercain (now deactivated)), she said: "Punish is about a pedophile who was shot by the child’s father and now lives in exile where he physically maims himself to simulate the bullet wound in order to punish himself." (Nov 2, 2024)
Many of the themes of the EP revolve around sexual shame, starting here.
Whatever's wrong with me
I will take to bed
I give in so easy
Nature chews on me
Little death like lead
Poisonous and heavy
It has always been this way
It has always been this way
I am punished by love
I am punished by love
In the morning
I will mar myself again
He was a natural plauché
Saying "you won't forget this"
Shame is sharp
And my skin gives so easy
Only god knows
Only god would believe
That i was an angel
But they made me leave
I am punished by love
I am punished by love
I am punished by love
I am punished by love
Track 3
Housofpsychoticwomn
Housofpsychoticwomn is definitely an interesting track. The track opens with the distorted repetition of “I love you” over and over again. The middle of the track is filled with barely understandable spoken word, almost mirroring the very quality of its existence by shame taking the form of its delivery; almost as if the narrator is so embarrassed by its own suffocating desire for love, or rather, the pervert's yearning for lust disguised as love, that it's struggling to speak its own nauseating desires clearly.
The only discernible words we hear are "I love you" spoken so repetitively near the end of the track that, as the listener, you feel yourself spiralling into madness along with the narrator. The choir-like moaning adds to the ominous tone, taking up so much, yet so little space amongst the fanning drone sounds.
In one of her Instagram posts, she mentions spending copious amounts of time at a power plant (as aforementioned), where she admits to masturbating to its desolate grandiosity. Some theorise that the distorted breathing and moaning throughout the track is an actual recording of her masturbating, as some see it as a subtle way of incorporating the themes of perversion in an experimental sense.
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
There was a point where everything bent down (I love you)
And it took something from me (I love you)
Something I can't quite explain (I love you)
And I always wondered if it would come back (I love you)
And love me the way it said it was supposed to (I love you)
But maybe it lied (I love you)
Maybe it was all a lie (I love you)
I've tried so hard to explain in words what it meant to me (I love you)
How it felt to me (I love you)
But maybe it's not meant to be explained (I love you)
Maybe it's not meant to be marked down in words (I love you)
Or scrawled out on a piece of paper (I love you)
Until then, I guess I'll just lie here and wait (I love you, I love you)
Wait for it to come back (I love you)
Wait for it to love me again (I love you)
Do you think you know how to give up? (I love you)
Do you think you understand what it means to be loved? (I love you)
You don't, and you never will
But I can tell you right now
It's beautiful
It is such a precious thing to be loved
Such a precious, magnificent thing to be loved
Such a wondrous and painful thing to be loved
When you were young, you said you wished that someone loved you
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
I love you
[repeats “I love you” 86 more times]
Track 4
Vacillator
The verse “If you love me, keep it to yourself” separates the narrator from the object of their affection —or rather, a perversion of love. Some suggest that it is a direct proposition from Hayden to her audience, considering that the “love” she has received from die-hard fans is its own form of perversion, maybe even a one-sided exchange, where Hayden’s privacy is violated by those projecting their own obsessions and madness onto her.
I like to think of Housofpsychoticwomn and Vacillator as a conversation, riddled with tension. Vacillator seeks pleasures of the flesh without a need for love; the Psychotic Woman becomes desperate.
You're so smooth
If you want, you can bite me
And I won't move
You won't lose me to thunder or lightning
But you could to crowded rooms
I like that sound you make
When you're clawing at the edge and without escape
Do you like that, baby?
I could make you cum twenty times a day
Close the door, let me in
If you love me, keep it to yourself
If you love me, keep it to yourself
If you love me, keep it to yourself
If you love me, keep it to yourself
If you love me, then keep it to yourself
If you love me, then keep it to yourself
Keep it to yourself
If you love me, then keep it to yourself
Track 5
Onanist
The idea of the philosophy has a fairly simple explanation, although a bit more prophetic in concept: all human beings exist in “The Great Dark” on a day-to-day basis, or “basic reality.” “The Ring” is the sensation of rising to “God.” Not a Christian God, for Hayden at least, but a theoretical feeling of God—euphoria and ecstasy. “The Veil” is the space you pass through to get from “The Great Dark” to “The Divine Theatre,” “The Divine Theatre” being that of the feeling of God, and existing in the presence of God.
Track 6
Pulldrone
Pulldrone, while a gruelling 15 minutes of drone, it’s also the climax of the EP (no pun intended).
The track veins with Hayden listing her 12 Pillars of Simulacrum, inspired by “Simulacra and Simulation” by Jean Baudrillard. These 12 Pillars divulge the steps humans take to feel close to “God” or acquire the feeling of euphoria. The pillars are as follows:
I. Apathy
II. Disruption
III. Curiosity
IV. Assimilation
V. Aggrandization
VI. Delineation
VII. Perversion
VIII. Resentment
IX. Separation
X. Degradation
XI. Annihilation
XII. Desolation
The seventh pillar, Perversion, ties in with the greater themes of the EP by taking on a new meaning through the lyrics
"It is no good bearing false witness / The sinner's errand/I am what I am but we are not the same/It is no good speaking of fairness, the fools errand."
In this context, there is a different meaning of the term "pervert," meaning to deviate from righteousness, which is where Jean Baudrillard comes in.
On an Instagram post during the EP rollout, Hayden posts an underlined excerpt from "Simulacra and Simulation" that reads,
"One can see that the iconoclasts, whom one accuses of disdaining and negating images, were those who accorded them their true value, in contrast to the iconolaters who only saw reflections in them and were content to venerate a filigree God."
In simple, Baudrillard’s philosophy of Simulation is that we live in a world where everything is a copy of something else before it, thus questioning the integrity of reality as a whole. In this excerpt, Baudrillard tells us that those who destroy icons with an assigned value, such as a cross in Western Christian religion, are actually giving it its true value, as icons are only important if they have an audience to oppose them, just as an opposing audience is only a perversion of righteousness because of the existence of righteousness as a whole.
Perhaps here, Hayden tells us that Perversion only exists as a turning point in Simulation once the divined righteousness of something loses its value in the eyes of the beholder. This might also be a theme of Hayden’s life experiences as a trans woman in the South and how trans individuals often face disdain from the church, with religious ideals painting their existence and desires as a perversion of their righteousness.
For comparison: “Ptolemaea is a cathartic, horror-filled track showcasing the murder of Ethel Cain at the hands of Isaiah, Pulldrone is the antithesis of this portrayal of death, taking its own magnanimous ideation of pain. Pulldrone is one part philosophy, and three parts droning inescapable instrumentation, mechanical in nature, and gruelling to listen to. It emulates apathy in death, a slow, torturous nothingness that consumes you, and just when you think it’s over, it reappears just long enough at the end to make your eardrums bleed in one last hoorah. It is, in a way, a hyperrealistic depiction of desolation.
In short, the 12 Pillars:
I. Apathy
[by common definition, refers to the lack of interest, enthusiasm, concern, and the attitude of not caring resulting from it:
Using Hayden’s YouTube video on “The Ring, The Great Dark, and Proximity to God,” a concept used heavily across the entire EP, this line may also refer to the feeling of being disconnected from ‘The Ring,’ hence leaving the narrator in despair. The ‘apathy’ here represents the inability to feel the pull of transcendence and connection that the full spectrum of frequencies ‘The Ring’ provides, and thus, making the narrator never being able to enter ‘The Divine Theatre.’
By common definition, a pervert is a person whose sexual behaviour is regarded as abnormal and unacceptable, or a sexual deviant. However, in this case, Hayden is likely referring to the other, less commonly known definition of the term, which is “to distort or corrupt the original course, meaning, or state of (something),” or “to lead (someone) away from what is considered natural or acceptable.” “I am what I am” is a philosophical proclamation of the “self” and is a statement to affirm that they exist. To say “I am what I am and I am nothing” is a subversion of this proclamation. This negation of the self is used here as “internal reckoning”, and by using the word “nothing,” the narrator is rejecting the usual connotations of the “self” as something valuable or meaningful, and cannot be related to any other person or thing, because nothing other than the “self” can make this proclamation.]
(taken from Genius)
II. Disruption
From the words of Baudrillard, it is the ‘realising that you can escape the great dark and become aware of the ring and transcendence’
III. Curiosity
It is the insatiable desire, the ‘wanting to feel the pull of the ring for yourself and to know what it feels like if it happened to you’
IV. Assimilation
Ascension with the ring; the ‘feeling of enlightenment and the connection with a higher power, short-lasting, you desire to get it once more’
V. Aggrandization
Rabid and aggressive, it is the ‘beginning of demanding the euphoria that comes with the assimilation, no longer settled with the slow pull’
VI. Delineation
In contemplation of one’s mortality, it is where you ‘realise the veil between the divine theatre and the great dark, becoming unsure of reality and what defines it, unravelling’
VII. Perversion
Perversion, the word in which the EP forms its namesake, finds itself in the bible as ‘a deviation from righteousness, be it sexually, formations of speech or through one’s self-prescribed justice.’ Ethel clearly takes it from the first one, with the whole narrative being around love and its potential immorality
But in this quotation, she expands upon this narrative to also account for speech, and in that, to lie about what you do will in turn make you into a false witness, forming you as an abomination to God; this translates well from the track prior, ‘Onanist’, who, after being found by the sharp eyes of God, lied in order to protect themselves from sexual deviancy.
This concept is followed by the mention of the sinners’ errand, an altered version of the fools’ errand, which is an idiom that refers to a task that is unlikely to be successful, or an effort that is pointless, absurd, or useless, a task almost certain to fail. Given God’s omniscience, it's most likely that this lying would end up in his undoing
VIII. Resentment
Wrath, the ‘anger about the limitations of the flesh, as you are unable to permanently reside within the ‘Divine Theatre’
IX. Separation
A deep craving, insatiable to hide, as commented through Baudrillard’s theology, it’s the ‘feel of detachment from the inescapable reality of the real world, only admiring the proximity of god in your life’
The concept of ‘separation’ from one’s divine authority also translates well to the biblical idea that sin separates you from god, especially given the context of the EP; this is evidenced primarily through Isaiah 59:2:
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”
X. Degradation
Torn and ‘feeling split between the great dark and the divine theatre, you begin to sink into wallow and self-pity upon entering the hole’
XI. Annihilation
Destruction of oneself within the reality because of the depriving separation from the divine
XII. Desolation
Both cyclical in nature, desolation hides in the void that is situated in the middle of the sphere’s outline.
Onanism, as a geometrical structure, is complex on its outskirts, but in the middle, there is a perfect nothing, sex as shallow as it comes; same can be said for the ever-eating ouroboros, self-punishing in consistent ruination, drawing lines to our narrator’s hatred over self-gratification
One, apathy
I am that I am, and I am nothing
Two, disruption
There goes a great shudder through the muscle
A shimmering of bells through the mist
Three, curiosity
One quick moment to crane the neck
I have always possessed the insatiable need to see what happens inside the room
Four, assimilation
Lo, wellspring of knowledge, of feeling, of sensation
Beauty, overwhelming
I will dislocate my jaw to fit it all in
Five, aggrandization
The pull, yes, the pull
Send down your cordage of suffocation and let me in
Six, delineation
I want to know what God knows, and I will be with Him
Sent over the edge, I sigh
Flush against the veil, I sing
Seven, perversion
It is no good, bearing false witness
The sinner's errand
I am what I am, but we are not the same
It is no good, speaking of fairness
The fool's errand
Eight, resentment
Are these laurels to be proud of?
Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live
Hate, hate
Nine, separation
I was an angel, though plummeting
The stars are as beams shining through the wheel
I am sure that hell must be cold
Ten, degradation
Nature chews on me
Eleven, annihilation
This agony
Such is the consequence of audience
I will claw my way back to the great dark, and we will not speak of this place again
Twelve, desolation
Therein lies sacred geometry of onanism
Of ouroboros, of punishment
I am that I was as I no longer am, for I am nothing
Amen
Track 7
Etienne
In the same YouTube video where Hayden discusses her philosophical ideas about "The Great Dark" and "Proximity to God," she mentions the French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée in the video description.
Etienne is the first breath of fresh air in the entire project, with the familiar sound of a piano juxtaposing the desolate, nauseating, and cold feeling that Pulldrone left with us. The piano almost instils a sense of relief after the oppressive nature of the project thus far. Tying this to Hayden’s fascination with Étienne's perspective on temples, this track may be an auditory representation of entering the proverbial “Divine Theatre,” such as that of a temple to those who practice religion: a closeness to God; a welcoming embrace after nearly an hour of desolation.
The song ends with a spoken word from a cassette tape Hayden came across one night while playing old sermons from the 1980s, and decided to include it because of the impression it left on her. The preacher tells a fable about a man who hoped to end his life by inducing a heart attack, so he runs every single day until he collapses, hoping that the repetition of fatigue and collapse would eventually kill him. However, after repeating the cycle enough times, the man finds that running makes him feel so good that he no longer has the desire to die.
Track 8
Thatorchia
What does it mean? Does anyone know?
Well, it's not dictionary-defined because, of course, in pure Ethel Cain fashion, she made it up.
Thatorchia is a made-up word by Ethel. In an interview, she explained that the word “Thatorchia” kept coming to her mind over and over again as the idea that “God will let you in, but he won’t let you stay.” Thatorchia is the repetitive, exhausting nature of the 12 Pillars of Simulacrum. Perversion “Nearer my God to Thee” as the opening, chosen hymn for the EP. It all mounted conceptually to bring us to this conclusion: that in all our attempts to define “God,” to feel it, to drag ourselves through the “Great Darkness” in order to reach it again, we find that “God” will always find a way to slip through our fingers.
Though not canon to the Ethel Cain universe, the thesis of the EP (Thatorchia) almost mirrors what I consider the thesis of Preachers Daughter. Sun Bleached Flies, in the parallels in the lyrics: “God loves you, but not enough to save you.”
Track 9
Amber Waves
Amber waves follows “Amber”, who is defined by Ethel as “the personification of love cast aside to get high” as it waves goodbye, choosing to get high over acknowledging the love surrounding them. The repeating phrase “I’ll be alright” is almost a small prayer, a plea even, hopeful that when things fall apart, there is solace in this high, as it is the only remaining access to God.
Before she leaves
Amber waves at me
Days go by, time goes on without me
I'll be alright, I'll be alright
I take the long way home
Shaking the bottle and letting them roll
'Cause the devil I know
Is the devil I want
Is it not fun, oh
To feel many other ways?
What would you do
Is nothing to me, to me
I still kick rocks when the walking is good
And pretend at the chain link that I am the wood
As I'm leaning my head back
Saying, "Take me, I ain't gonna scream"
Yet here I am, empty
Watching love of mine leave
But I'll be alright
Me and my amber waves
I'll be alright, I'll be alright
Is it not fun, oh
To feel many other ways?
What you do
Is nothing to me
Is it not fun? Oh
In the catatonia
Maybe it's true
You were nothing to me
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