Biography
Ethel Cain crafts intimate adult alternative songs with a lilting voice that drifts through melancholy moods and dreamy, reverb-heavy atmospheres. After releasing material under earlier aliases during her teenage years, she introduced the Ethel Cain project through several EPs spanning the late 2010s and early 2020s, then unveiled her debut full-length album Preacher's Daughter in 2022. Appearances alongside artists such as Mitski and Florence + the Machine preceded the arrival of her darker sophomore effort, Perverts, in 2025.
Tallahassee native Cain grew up as the daughter of a church deacon and his wife, receiving her education at home in northern Florida while participating in the church choir from an early age. Exposure to Florence + the Machine prompted her to compose an initial collection of songs on a Casio keyboard near the age of 15. Although she departed the church at 16 and later identified publicly as a transgender woman at 20, her songwriting continued to draw from gospel hymns alongside alternative music, pop, and classic rock. Recording initially as White Silas and Atlas, she issued her first mixtape at 19, followed a couple of years later by the August 2019 release of “Bruises,” which marked her debut as Ethel Cain. The EPs Carpet Bed and Golden Age appeared in September and December of that same year. After linking with like-minded singer/songwriter Nicole Dollanganger through social media, Cain supported her at a Chicago performance in 2019.
Mid-2020 brought a relocation from Florida to Indiana, where she tracked her third EP, Inbred, featuring the single “Michelle Pfeiffer” with rapper Lil Aaron. A cover of Britney Spears’ “Everytime” surfaced in early 2022, setting the stage for the May arrival of Preacher's Daughter on her own Daughters of Cain imprint. The well-received album generated opening opportunities with Florence + the Machine, Caroline Polachek, and Mitski, among others. In October 2024 Cain contributed a track to the tribute album American Football (Covers) and simultaneously released the elegiac single “Punish” in advance of her next project. Self-produced and issued on Daughters of Cain, Perverts emerged in January 2025.
Tallahassee native Cain grew up as the daughter of a church deacon and his wife, receiving her education at home in northern Florida while participating in the church choir from an early age. Exposure to Florence + the Machine prompted her to compose an initial collection of songs on a Casio keyboard near the age of 15. Although she departed the church at 16 and later identified publicly as a transgender woman at 20, her songwriting continued to draw from gospel hymns alongside alternative music, pop, and classic rock. Recording initially as White Silas and Atlas, she issued her first mixtape at 19, followed a couple of years later by the August 2019 release of “Bruises,” which marked her debut as Ethel Cain. The EPs Carpet Bed and Golden Age appeared in September and December of that same year. After linking with like-minded singer/songwriter Nicole Dollanganger through social media, Cain supported her at a Chicago performance in 2019.
Mid-2020 brought a relocation from Florida to Indiana, where she tracked her third EP, Inbred, featuring the single “Michelle Pfeiffer” with rapper Lil Aaron. A cover of Britney Spears’ “Everytime” surfaced in early 2022, setting the stage for the May arrival of Preacher's Daughter on her own Daughters of Cain imprint. The well-received album generated opening opportunities with Florence + the Machine, Caroline Polachek, and Mitski, among others. In October 2024 Cain contributed a track to the tribute album American Football (Covers) and simultaneously released the elegiac single “Punish” in advance of her next project. Self-produced and issued on Daughters of Cain, Perverts emerged in January 2025.
Albums
Singles
