“I love pop music that can have you crying on the dance floor. I love when the music is bright and propulsive but without losing sadness or darker emotion in the lyric. It’s most cathartic to me when those two parallels can exist inside the song at the same time.” Perfume Genius discusses his new album “Set My Heart On Fire Immediately” (out May 15th), life in quarantine, and working with Blake Mills for Pairs Project.
Perfume Genius - “On The Floor”
directed by Mike Hadreas
stream/download “On The Floor”
presave / preorder ‘Set My Heart On Fire’ (out May 15)
On May 15 Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) will release his 5th studio album, ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’, The first single is available today — “Describe,” a track that captures a sense living in the moment through a heavy fog of grizzly distortion and tumbling slide guitars. Hadreas notes, “it started as a really somber ballad. It was very minimal and very slow. And then it turned into this beast of a song. I started writing about when you are in such a dark place that you don’t even remember what goodness is or what anything feels like. And so, the idea was having someone describe that to you, because you forgot or can’t get to it.” Its accompanying video, self-directed by Hadreas, envisions “an end of the world where there are no boundaries, there are no edges, no rules, or the rules are completely new with how you interact with each other and the space around you.”
‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’ sees Hadreas re-teaming with Grammy nominated producer Blake Mills and features contributions from musicians Jim Keltner, Pino Palladino and Matt Chamberlin. It was recorded in Los Angeles, where Perfume Genius settled in 2017 with longtime partner and musical collaborator Alan Wyffels.
The album explores and subverts concepts of masculinity and traditional roles, and introduces decidedly American musical influences. Throughout the album Hadreas plays with themes of love, sex, memory and the body, channeling popular music mythologies while irreverently authoring its own. “I wanted to feel more open, more free and spiritually wild,” says Hadreas, “and I’m in a place now where those feelings are very close– but it can border on being unhinged. I wrote these songs as a way to be more patient, more considered — to pull at all these chaotic threads hovering around me and weave them in to something warm, thoughtful and comforting”
The sense of communion and physicality was borne in part from Hadreas’ work on ‘The Sun Still Burns Here’. Already a formidable stage presence, it had elevated him to a rigorous multi-disciplinary performer. “I had been working with them for a year and a half. With lots of rehearsals, lots of performances, lots of relationships and energies, and I was feeling connected to my body. I was feeling connected to all their bodies. And having boundaries be blurred and having rules be gone and having all this play within nonsense and absurdity — in tandem with a real connection and truly valuable work.” In 2019, the show travelled to Boston, New York and Minneapolis after its Seattle debut.
‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’ will be available on May 15th at all retailers. Fans can pre-order the limited edition double LP in translucent blue with a 24×36” poster via the Matador webstore or in regular black at this link. The Matador webstore limited edition record can also be bundled with an exclusive t-shirt.
preorder / presave ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’
OUT TODAY: Perfume Genius’s “Reshaped,” a six-track EP of “No Shape” remixes from mura masa, King Princess, Laurel Halo and more. Listen here, and find Perfume Genius’s current tour itinerary, including tonight at Forest Hills Stadium with Belle and Sebastian: http://matablog.matadorrecords.com/…/out-today-perfume-gen…/
From the ‘Reshaped’ Remix EP out June 8th on Matador Records. The EP features reworkings of 'No Shape’ tracks from Mura Masa, Laurel Halo, Jam City, King Princess, Blake Mills and mmph.
stream / download “Run Me Thru (King Princess Remix)”
stream / purchase ‘No Shape’
Perfume Genius - “Slip Away”
directed by Andrew Thomas Huang
From ‘No Shape’, out May 5.
stream or preorder
alexanderheir