@documentjournal

“There will always be plenty of kids in little homes in the middle of nowhere, across the country and across the world, who feel like they’re the only person who is going through what they’re going through.” In the three years since she began releasing music under the name Ethel Cain, Hayden Anhedönia (@mothercain) has garnered critical acclaim for her smoldering pop and alt-rock anthems about love and loss on the American outskirts. But unlike the vision of patriotic nostalgia championed by others, Anhedönia’s Southern Gothic is one viewed without rose-tinted glasses. Instead, she exposes the country’s dark underbelly in songs about poverty, substance abuse, violent impulses, and religious angst, written from the perspective of her alter-ego, Ethel. At the link in our bio, Anhedönia reflects on the end of her alter-ego (and birth of a new one, Ethel’s mother), experiencing spirituality as a flash of inspiration, and chronicling the unseen realities of life on the fringes. Text by @antisocialmedia. Photography by @averynorman.