In unprecedented times, marginalized voices can often find themselves worn into silence. However, artists such as Amanda Williams continue to bolster the conversation around what it means to be Black in America.          

“We Say What Black This Is” is an impassioned inquest into Black identity. The collection hung alongside those of other Black artists at Spelman College Museum of Fine Arts, with Williams’s works standing defiant against the gallery’s white walls. 

The exhibition is an exploration of Black identity through color theory. Williams’s inspiration rose from the online protest Blackout Tuesday — the 2020 online action against racism and police brutality in which users posted a black square image — which was widely criticized as a form of virtue signaling. The collection subverts the static nature of the black squares, each divulging a different facet of the Black experience. MacArthur-awarded artist Amanda Williams has once again deftly blurred the lines between spatiality, race and identity. 

Through the AUC Art Collective, Spelman students took a special topics course on Amanda Williams. They then wrote didactic labels for the “We Say What Black This Is” collection to be displayed alongside the pieces. Art History major Chloë Catrow wrote the label for the piece titled “You refuse to stop saying ‘irregardless’ despite knowing that it is in fact NOT a word.”

When explaining the piece, she said, “It made me think about [the] dialect within the African American community, like African American Vernacular English. And I learned more about that, which I explain in the label, and tie it into how Black people have not and still can’t exist under oppression this way. Certain language is a rejection of oppressive systems. It’s a way of survival.”

The canvases are all in the square shape of an Instagram photo and utilize large swaths of black with color peeking through. The hues below the surface are as much an inquiry into Blackness as color theory, divulging an identity that goes beyond skin color. The titles of each of the pieces describe various Black experiences: health, religion, dialect and inequality, emphasizing the diversity and expansiveness of Black identity. Collectively, the works embrace different elements of Blackness and act to subvert stereotypes. Catrow stated, “I hope that [visitors] know that Blackness is not a monolith; there’s no one way to be Black. These works are a rejection of stereotypes that may have been formed about Black people. I think it’s really unique how the artist uses color to identify that.” 

Amanda Williams’s contributions continue into her efforts to connect and inspire local communities. Her dedication to uplifting Black women glistened through her words: “Really for me, it was all the students. There is nowhere else on this earth that Black women get to say what anything is, and so Spelman is where this work had to be. They are the changemakers, not only in the arts but in the world.” 

As Williams stated during her speech, “[Her works] are about bringing different constituencies together to really understand how we can move them collectively. We need that message more than ever right now.”

The post “We Say What Black This Is” collection showcases Black identity appeared first on Technique.

Frost-bitten Atlanta didn’t stop fans from crowding under the warm fluorescents of Variety Playhouse for the first leg of Soccer Mommy’s 2025 tour. There was a murmur of hesitancy; each song left a surprise with no setlist to dissect beforehand.  

The opener, L’Rain, began her performance, a mesh of voices overlapping lush instrumentals. Taja Cheek, the main vocalist, quipped that being from New York, she felt as if the cold weather was her fault.  

After the opening set, Soccer Mommy, the stage name of Sophie Allison, entered the stage amidst the quiet chaos of shuffling equipment and tuning guitars. The crowd stood quiet, subdued until Allison walked towards the microphone. Behind her hung a circle wrapped by a garland of ivy and pink petals, swirling projections of flowers and butterflies. Small planters of fake flowers frame the stage, creating a warm, earthy atmosphere.  

The audience remained muted, perhaps due to this being the tour’s first show. Despite her name, Soccer Mommy did not exude a bold, commanding stage presence —  but what she brought a subtle harmony, a captivating calmness. She seemed like someone you could relate to, the girl who sat next to you in your high school English class. Her music, too, emanates a sense of nostalgia, as if drawing up memories of a hazy, distant summer.  

Allison opened with the queer ballad “Abigail,” and it felt poignant to begin with a song titled by a person’s name. This trend has  existed since her first album, with songs like “Henry,” “Lucy” and even the vague “M” of her October 2024 LP “Evergreen.” One of Allison’s talents is enveloping the listener within her world, immersing her web of personal, experiential storytelling.  

She played “Circle the Drain,” a favorite of her 2020 album “Color Theory.” She sang softly, gazing downward. From “Evergreen,” she played “Some Sunny Day” and “Driver” — a punchy number that captures the essence of indie-rock. It’s followed up by two more of her darker tunes, “Shotgun” and “Bones” from her 2022 album “Sometimes, Forever.” 

The climax is, fittingly, the quietest part of the night. The opening chords to “Still Clean” drape a gentle hush over the crowd. It’s just Allison — no background drums, guitar or keys. The lyrics and emotions were stripped bare on stage, just the quiet strum of Allison’s sparkly pink electric guitar and warm voice, confessional and tinted by sentimentality, gently narrating a fading young love.  

Her music embodies a 2010s sound, the kind of song heard on a college radio or the end of a coming-of-age movie. Maybe because Allison grew up in Nashville, her songs conjure memories of a southern summer — alive, warm and sweet. It’s the same energy she carries with her on stage, one of familiar comfort and sentimentality — sweet tea on a back porch, shouldered between old friends. It’s a resurgence of youth and finding identity, of making mistakes and freshly bruised knees and hearts.  

“Play ‘Switzerland’!” someone in the crowd remarked, referencing the song off her first album.  

“I don’t know how!” Allison answered, “I was sixteen when I wrote it!”  

The fumbling inexperience of adolescence is one that the next song “royal screw up” captures perfectly. It is falling apart and being glued back together, again and again.  

“This is the last song,” Allison said, about “Your Dog,” but the band returned minutes later for an encore. “In the car with the backseat, southern summer,” she opened during the encore with “Scorpio Rising,” another old song off her 2018 album “Clean.” The show concluded with “Don’t Ask Me,” airy and light as she retired the audience back to the post-snow chill. But for just a moment, Soccer Mommy brought back a sliver of summer. 

The post Soccer Mommy brings bedroom pop bliss to Atlanta appeared first on Technique.

Although Ethel Cain’s newest release may appear to be an unexpected pivot from her previous albums, “Perverts” still captures Cain’s raw, unwavering reverence. Through the discord of machine noises, Cain deftly weaves in her signature unrelenting desire and emotional earnestness. While “Perverts” is sonically darker than past releases, Florida-born and raised Hayden Silas Anhedönia, known as Ethel Cain, is no stranger to the taboo. Her previous album, “Preacher’s Daughter,” narrates the fictional story of the persona Ethel Cain, ending with gruesome cannibalism in the song “Strangers.” 

Cain’s introduction to music began in the local church choir of her small, conservative town. Cain, a transgender woman, stated to W magazine that growing up, “It was me versus my whole town.” Her Southern Baptist upbringing has heavily influenced her music, which explores themes of religious trauma, sexuality and the American dream. While her popular past songs such as “Strangers” and “American Teenager” may have a more digestible sound, in their lyrics lingers the darkness that is unmistakably blatant in “Perverts.”  

Although featuring long stretches of heavy, haunting instrumental, Cain’s gut-wrenching lyricism is more present than ever.  The album begins with the title track, “Perverts,” as Cain vocalizes a rendition of the Christian hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” But unlike the original, this version opens with dissonant vocals before descending into heavy ambient instrumental. “Heaven has forsaken the masturbator,” Cain sings, “No one you know is a good person.” The title track is a dark, subversive tease of what is to come. 

In the second track, “Punish,” she references the case of Leon Gary Plauché, who killed the man caught sexually abusing Plauché’s young son. “I am punished by love,” Cain sings, devastatingly, embodying the perspective of a predator. Cain does what many artists are afraid to do — inhibit the minds of monsters, the unforgivable. In “Housofpsychoticworm,” Cain whispers about love before the track deteriorates into mechanical whirring. She repeats “I love you,” so harsh that it echoes a command, hinting at the manipulation that can lurk within the belly of love. 

“Vacillator” takes this love and warps it to intensity, reveling in its idealization. The title of the song describes a person who is hesitant and wavering, often out of fear. This song incarnates the push and pull between the desire for affection and the fear of potential pain. Cain’s voice is sweet and the instrumental is quiet: a gentle contrast to the previous tracks on the album. 

“Pulldrone” is arguably the most lyrically complex of the album. Cain gently narrates her version of Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacrum and Simulation” alongside a deep buzzing that slowly crescendos. The 12-minute-long track journeys through emotional shifts, reconciling the emptiness of grasping something larger than yourself. The album concludes with “Amber Waves,” whose gentle sound and topic of addiction echoes Cain’s past projects. The album closes with the line, “I can’t feel anything,” distorted and pained.  

“Perverts” can be a difficult listen at times, featuring industrial drones and atmospheric dread, loud and raw with sparse vocals. However, it is this fervent uncomfortableness that unravels what “Perverts” is truly about. A pervert, in the world of Ethel Cain, is not just someone guilty of sexual deviance. It is about a desire to corrupt what is seen as natural, a disruption of the static normal. 

Cain’s inspiration for the album came to her after stumbling upon the abandoned Bruce Mansfield power plant one night, fascinated by its towering, brutalist structure. The plant’s vast industrial emptiness mirrors the harsh sound of “Perverts” and its atmosphere of aching loneliness. The album grapples with the tension between pursuing pleasure and soothing the reprimands that follow. 

Cain posted on Tumblr saying, “what i took away from the project was i’m still not sure what balance i think is healthiest to strike between neutrality and taking the beating of passing through the ring over and over. i suppose that’s for each listener to decide for themselves. maybe we’ll never know before we die. i guess only god knows.” 

The post Ethel Cain releases new album “Perverts” appeared first on Technique.