As the first trans woman to break the US Billboard Top 10 albums, she has attracted acclaim, controversy and everything in between. Now she’s ready to upend pop again with an ambitious new album, a new outlook – and her first relationship
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omething strange happened to Hayden Anhedönia in January. The 27-year-old artist known professionally as Ethel Cain was finishing off her upcoming album Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You when she had to go to court. “I got into some traffic trouble,” she says coyly in her soft southern lilt. The plan was to drive from the courthouse in her home city of Tallahassee, Florida, to Toronto to wrap the album with her longtime collaborator Matthew Tomasi.
“Listen,” she continues, leaning forward into her webcam – a glint behind the eyes, conspiratorial tone in the voice. “I don’t know what happened in that courthouse, but I walked out of there having been put on probation. I couldn’t go to Canada. I couldn’t go anywhere.” As a result, Tomasi flew down to Tallahassee. They holed up in Anhedönia’s tiny home studio and didn’t leave until it was done. When they weren’t working, they watched Twin Peaks for the first time.
“Every day it was wake up, work, Twin Peaks, work, Twin Peaks, work …” They binged the whole thing in two weeks. Anhedönia even hunted down the synths that composer Angelo Badalamenti used on the soundtrack and sprinkled them on a few of her own tracks. One night they finished working, watched the final episode, and went to bed. She woke up to the news that David Lynch had passed away.
