Hayden Anhedönia’s Ethel Cain alter ego took place as an escape from a very tortured teenhood. Raised in a strict and oppressive Southern Baptist group in Florida, after which at 16 popping out as homosexual, and later a trans girl, Anhedönia discovered launch by imagining life as a celebrity diva. Explaining to Pitchfork how she grew to become Cain, she says: “That fanatical delusion was positively the stepping stone and I’m simply cussed sufficient to have truly tried to make it occur.”
Anhedönia has launched a string of more and more spectacular singles lately, together with the dream-pop haze of Gibson Girl and the brilliantly noirish Lana Del Rey-isms of Crush. Her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter, launched this month, is her boldest assertion but, taking in parts of alt-rock, gospel, pop (most notably on the standout American Teenager) and nation, all refracted via a southern gothic prism, with recurring themes of small-town ennui, poisonous relationships and demise.
Now dwelling in a deconsecrated church in rural Indiana, it’s clear that Anhedönia’s Baptist upbringing nonetheless casts an extended shadow. “I’ve a bizarre relationship with placing faith in my artwork,” she says. “I’m to this point faraway from it now, however contemplating that’s actually all I knew for my entire life, it’s positively the primary supply of inspiration.”
Preacher’s Daughter is out now