Ethel Cain’s massive album and tour announcement came as a surprise mere months after the release of her groundbreaking noise project,Perverts. Mother Cain blessed her fans with the reveal of her upcoming sophomore album,Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love Youon Instagram. The album is currently scheduled for release in August with a huge multi-continent tour following.
Preacher’s Daughtersolidified the artist behind Ethel Cain, Hayden Anhedönia, as an indie darling. The gothic alternative Americana pop sounds found on her debut album are fresh, innovative, and enchanting. The concept album tells the story of a young girl, Ethel Cain, as she leaves her hometown and finds herself on a collision course with her untimely demise at the hands of her lover.
The album explores intergenerational trauma and the suffocating social pressure of Southern Baptist communities that the artist herself grew up within. Her new album will exist in this universe, centered on Cain’s relationship with her first love introduced to inPreacher’s Daughter, Willoughby Tucker.
Who Is Willoughby Tucker?
The Story Behind Ethel Cain’s First Love
Ethel Cain is a phenomenal multimedia artist with the ability to craft an enveloping world around her narratives. Fans of the artist diligently dissect the lyrics, posters, interviews, diary entries, and other materials that Anhedönia offers up to expand the story of her concept album and characters, soWilloughby Tucker is a name known to dedicated fans. The song “A House in Nebraska” expresses the deep longing that Cain feels for her first love after he moved away from their hometown, Shady Grove.
Preacher’s Daughter is set in 1991. At this time, Cain is 20 years old and mourning the death of her father, the small-town preacher, according to Anhedönia’s interview withThe Line Of Best Fit.The artist revealed on Instagram that her upcoming sophomore album is set in 1986, when the pair met as teenagers and embarked on a love story that would change their lives forever.
Anhedönia generously shares details about her art with her fans online. Her dedicated followers compile everything that she shares about her art, inspirations, and upcoming plans for release, no matter how passively the information is delivered. The artist has previously described Tucker’s aroma, saying that he smells like sweat and leather. Despite the deep and innocent teenage love that the two found in each other,they tragically fall away from each other due to Willoughby’s unstable nature.
How Does This Factor Into The Preacher’s Daughter Trilogy?
The Future Of The Ethel Cain Universe Is Constantly In Flux
Anhedönia has been teasing an album trilogy that follows the matriarchal line of Ethel’s family tree. The names of the albums are not confirmed, but Mother Cain toldAlternative Pressthat the next albums will be about Cain’s mother and grandmother,following the cycle of generational trauma from its final destination to its beginnings. Although her new upcoming album exists in this world,it is not a part of the trilogy project.
Willoughby Tucker, I Will Always Love Youis a name that has echoed through fan forums dedicated to the ethereal Ethel Cain. WhenPreacher’s Daughterwas finally completed after years of conceptualizing and starting from the ashes of each previous incarnation of the album, it was very long. In the end, Anhedönia decided to part with three songs making the album more compact, these became known as the “Preacher’s Daughter B-Sides”.Years ago, she expressed interest in releasing the songs as an EP rather than an album. In the time since, the project has grown into an album that will shed more light on the life of the Preacher’s Daughter.
