Song(s) of the Day # 4,168 Ethel Cain

 

There's a chapter in David Lodge's Art Of Fiction where he highlights a passage in John Updike's Rabbitt Run which ficyses on the concept of epiphany. A moment of almost ecstatcic clarity where we can be taken out of the humdrum tread of momotonous experience and are transfuxed by the divine.

I had a moment that felt not unlike epiphany yesterday. Well OK lets not overstate it. I 'm doing so for effect but hey. Call it writer's license. I heard something I liked very much but momentarily it felt like this too. I walked into the record shop acriss the road from me after my lesson on the way to the shops. There was a pretty young woman behind the counter that I hadn't seen previously. A weird and affecting track was playing over the soundsystem.

I asked her about it and said how much I liked it. A web of enchantment had accumulated like a bank of smog above a city. The young woman opened up and spoke of her enthusiasm, for Ethel Cain the artist in question. About how this album wasn't typical and that she produced a range of stuff. Ambient. Lyric and mood and narrative driven. About how she waas going to see her soon. Her excitement was tangible. 

This is all news to me. Like Lana Del Ray she has gathered traction and attention in recent years by offering a more mythic and romantic narrative experience than the standari. Willloughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You, her latest album moves slowly but resonates powerfully. Why not fill your space with it as you prepare your breakfast.