Ethel Cain unveils sepia-tinged visualiser for new single ‘Nettles’

Having recently confirmed details of her forthcoming second album ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You’ (due out on 8th August), Florida-born cult favourite Ethel Cain has now offered up its first preview, ‘Nettles’. 

Landing accompanied by a moody, atmospheric video that journeys through various liminal landscapes, the single is a shimmering, eight-minute epic with all the emotional resonance of Bon Iver at his best. It’s also our first instalment of the album’s central love story - that of the young romance between Cain (aka Hayden Anhedönia) and her first love, Willoughby Tucker (which also serves as a prequel to her 2022 debut LP, ‘Preacher’s Daughter’). 

“This song and the last track on the record were both written the same week, the very first week I moved into the house in Alabama where I finished ‘Preacher’s Daughter’,” she has said of ‘Nettles’. “In similar fashion to ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ (specifically ‘A House in Nebraska’ and ‘Strangers’), I wrote what essentially became the beginning and end of the story without realizing it.

“What were originally just little vignettes of emotion I was feeling at the time ultimately became the tentpoles for a larger narrative. ‘Nettles’ became a dream of losing the one you love, asking them to reassure you that it won’t come true and to dream, instead, of all the time you’ll have together as you grow old side by side. Every once in a blue moon, it feels good to slough off the macabre and to simply let love be.”

Check out the ‘Nettles’ video here: