Ethel Cain has released a new album, called Perverts. The first news I read about it was that it is an hour and a half long, with a 12-minute opening track. I was excited about it, but I still waited one more day after its release to find the right moment for a first listen. Then, I was hooked. It’s the first album that I’ve been listening to over and over this year, particularly the famous opening track, also called Perverts. It’s an ambient track, mysterious and unsettling, that reminds me of David Lynch’s movies, like Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive. I haven’t summoned the courage to listen to it at night.

I would have been happy even if it was a 4-track EP, but I’m particularly thankful that we got 89 minutes of new music in 9 songs, in these trying times when the trend is 2-minute-long songs that can trend on TikTok.

Dua Lipa and Kylie Minogue have each released extended versions of their albums, Radical Optimism and Tension. But the extended version of Kylie’s Padam Padam, a song that originally lasts 2 minutes and 46 seconds, doesn’t feel the same as a song that was originally meant to be 4 minutes long, like Can’t Get You Out of My Head. It doesn’t have the same structure. They feel streched out, with loading time between a verse and the bridge, or the bridge to the chorus. I’ll take the original versions instead.

When it comes to cinema, I’ve found myself in a different position. Seeing that a movie is over 2 hours makes me less willing to go to the cinema or watch it at home than if the movie was 100 minutes long. But that’s only before I get to the cinema or press play. After that, it’s not a matter of length. It’s whether I’m being told a story with the right pace during that time or not. Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese speaks to us during its 3 hours and 25 minutes, and Perverts by Ethel Cain sets an atmosphere and haunts the listener for the right length.