Ethel Cain announces prequel album Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You with lead single ‘Nettles’

Ethel Cain has released a new track called ‘Nettles’, the first glimpse of her second album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, due 8th August.

The new LP serves as a prequel to 2022’s Preacher’s Daughter and traces the beginnings of Cain’s recurring muse and first love, Willoughby Tucker.

“I wrote what essentially became the beginning and end of the story without realising it,” Cain says. “‘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.” She adds: “Every once in a blue moon, it feels good to slough off the macabre and to simply let love be.”

Cain explains that both this track and the album’s closer were written during her first week living in the Alabama house where she would later finish Preacher’s Daughter. Originally sketches of feeling, these songs became emotional tentpoles for a wider narrative. It’s a familiar Cain method; building mythology from fragments, gradually tying her life and work into something devotional.

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The album itself was produced and recorded between her home studios in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania and Tallahassee, Florida, but the material spans her entire run as Ethel Cain. Some tracks date back to the earliest days of the project, when she began crafting the slow-burn Southern gothic that earned her a devoted following and acclaim from the likes of The New York Times, Vogue and W Magazine.

Following its release, Cain will embark on her Willoughby Tucker Forever tour, which completely sold out in March, shifting 170,000 tickets within weeks. The run includes five nights at London’s Eventim Apollo, two nights apiece in Paris, Toronto and Seattle, and major venues across the US, including Radio City Music Hall, Kings Theatre and the Greek in Berkeley.

In the meantime, Cain’s debut Preacher’s Daughter continues to gather momentum, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Top Album Sales chart following its long-awaited vinyl release this April.

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