the great dark, the divine theatre, and the pull
Pulldrone is the 6th track on Ethel Cain’s 4th EP, Perverts. Pulldrone, while a gruelling 15 minutes of drone, it’s also the climax of the EP
visualises how she sees sound. The ring is also a metaphor for a transcendent experience. When thinking about music, she describes how creating “the ring” requires aligning the entire spectrum of frequencies. The sub-bass, the mid-tones, and the highest frequencies. Only when those elements come together does it create what she calls “the pull” — a transcendent musical experience that lifts beyond normal reality. It's suggested that she thinks this pattern is found when creating music, and it reflects something universal about the human experience.
"through your spine and up through your shoulders... in your pelvis and down through your thighs." is how she describes the movement—the feeling. It happens "when everything is impossibly still inside your room" or "on a bridge in the rain." (quotes from Tumblr). The seeking is universal. She believes that we’re all "born flung from it and spend our entire life trying to crawl back."
She frames this in 12 stages of seeking, or the 12 Pillars of Simulacrum, inspired by “Simulacra and Simulation” by Jean Baudrillard. These ultimately are the 12 Pillars which one takes to feel close to “God”. According to Baudrillard’s theory, each attempt to reach (or maintain) one of these transcendent experiences creates simulations, or copies that increasingly distance us from the original experience. Think of it like a religious ritual trying to recreate divine experience, or drugs attempting to recapture or relive a previous high. Each creates a kind of simulation that just replaces what it’s trying to represent. Hayden says that this pattern is universal—’ it has always been this way’ and ‘it’s happening to everybody’— implying that these cycles of seeking and simulation are a fundamental part of the human experience.
Take her Onanist Hoodie that was sold on her shop when the album was released. The phrase on the back
of the hoodie, "I am that I was as I no longer am for I am nothing." "I am that I was" captures the journey. The phrase suggests that there is a recognition of identity and continuity—or the acknowledgement of a past self that extends into the present. “As I no longer am” starts the transformation or break—the movement away from the original state of being. “For I am nothing” is the final stage, dissolution. It’s the complete loss of self into simulation or the void.
Despite the unsettling connotation, she suggests that the process is inevitable and an unavoidable part of life. The key isn’t to avoid it, but rather to understand how to navigate it.
I. Apathy
[by common definition, it refers to the lack of interest, enthusiasm, concern, and the attitude of not caring resulting from it:
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 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
Going back to the Onanist Temple Hoodie, similar philosophical concepts are also found in its graphic. The design incorporates Étienne-Louis Boullée's architectural design of an impossibly large Opera House alongside Gustav Doré's Dante's Paradise. Boullée's grandiose structure. Hayden calls these attempts to 'fit all of the heart inside' that were 'never big enough,' which represents our pointless efforts to contain and formalise transcendent experience. Doré's spiral of angels fits well here because they take the shape of a ring—not as an ascent to Paradise, but a path towards dissolution.
A post by the user on reddit explains this perfectly (in my opinion):
“it will let you near but it won’t let you stay.”
When she says this, she’s suggesting that we need to accept the temporary nature of transcendent experiences, rather than trying to capture, maintain, or permanently indulge in them. On tumblr she said: "I'm very afraid of it. But I still love it. I brave it just as much as I enjoy it."
The key here seems to be understanding how to “touch the veil without breaking through it.” She acknowledges the desire to be “greedy”, even in herself. The wanting of complete union with transcendent experience. However, the desire for permanence ultimately leads to simulation copies and the dissolution of self. She suggests that one approach it, is the acceptance that we can visit/get near “the divine theatre” but must return to “the great dark.” It won’t let you stay.
“A treat, not a meal” is how she describes transcendent experiences—suggesting that these experiences are necessary, but shouldn’t be all-consuming. Its not about either complete indulgence or complete abstinence, but about understanding how to navigate ordinary reality and transcendent experience, while still being grounded enough to function. The 12 stages outline what happens when we fail to maintain the balance. The path of initial numbness through attempts at transcendence, to the potential dissolution.
Together, these images create the central impediment of Hayden’s philosophy: our endless pursuit of transcendence inevitably leads not to permanent elevation, but to a cycle of simulation and dissolution.
No comments:
Post a Comment