Should one attempt to distill the music of Perfume Genius into a brief tagline, perhaps the best way to encapsulate the output of Mike Hadreas would be to say he makes music as danceable as it is heart-wrenching, often at the same time. Hadreas finds himself at New Haven’s College St. Music Hall on the very day he’s announced Ugly Season, his fifth album to be released in mid-June. But as a performer, his focus is still very much on the excellent magnum opus that is his 2020 release, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, which has continued something of a wondrous transformation for the artist as his albums have grown ever stranger and more alluring.
One couldn’t always dance to the music of Perfume Genius – Hadreas’ first record was almost exclusively played on the piano, and even as he graduated from the tinny microphone of Learning and into the fuller sound of Put Your Back N 2 It, the keys remained the centerpiece even as drums and synths came in. But when his third record arrived, Too Bright, Hadreas transformed his sound and himself and reemerged as something altogether different, a polymath who embraced pop music convention as much as he’d distort and invert it.
As a whole, Hadreas’ work has dealt front-and-center with his sexuality. His career began in 2008 with a debut album in 2010, the former date at the tail end of the Bush-era where people flippantly discussed whether or not gay people should have certain rights, the latter still five years out from the full legalization of same-sex marriage in the USA. From the first verse of his first song, he puts the stakes out there: “No one will answer your prayers ‘til you take off that dress / No one will hear all your crying ‘til you take your last breath”. In a few seconds, Hadreas heartrendingly encapsulates the fear he faced – that unless he abandoned the things that separated him from the supposed norm, the first time anyone would acknowledge him would be in death, be it by violence or suicide, a perilous double-bind that many non-straight people still face, especially when their homes and communities reject them.
Seeing Hadreas perform is a wonder. He sports a bespoke double-breasted blue suit and his set is decorated with sheer fabric and a chair wrapped intricately in a series of ropes. Hadreas’ writing is often specifically physical – songs like ‘My Body’ deal with his form as an othered thing, something he “wears”, a result of health struggles including Crohn’s disease. But onstage that same body is as integral to the performance as all the many registers of his voice, so expressive as he moves languidly around the stage, at times kneeling, grabbing his mic stand and facing the bright array of overhead lights, and later in the set drawing some of that veil-like material from the floor over his entire body, leaning back in the roped chair like a man possessed, singing with his head fully inverted on the floor.
Hadreas is joined onstage by a full band, including Meg Duffy who’s pulling double-duty as the opening act for the evening as Hand Habits, as well as Alan Wyffels on keys, Hadreas’ longtime partner and collaborator. Duffy’s quietly-excellent guitar playing has added weight to the live performances of Set My Heart… since they first appeared in a Covid-era pair of pre-taped performances broadcast on Jimmy Fallon; and the bond Wyffels and Hadreas share is evident in the middle of the evening when the two play some early material on their own, sharing the same piano bench. Hadreas recently remarked on Instagram that the two have been playing ‘Learning’ together for thirteen years, and given the fraught nature of Hadreas’ music from that era it’s encouraging to see them so far from that point now.
The band returns after this and remains for the rest of the night, and ‘Hood’, which swings with energy from decades past, an instant classic that found Hadreas fearing a partner eventually seeing his true self. ‘On the Floor’ is the band at its poppiest height, but underneath are lyrics that find him crushed by a crush rather than on the dancefloor that the melody might initially suggest, trying to move on, “cross[ing] out his name on the page” in dejection but also brokenly wondering, “How long ‘til his heart isn’t mine?” – torn between two extremes of feeling.
Far more triumphant is Hadreas’ anthemic second track from No Shape, ‘Slip Away’. Part of a fantastic album which continued the branching-out that began on Too Bright, it’s an encouragement to shed the judgmental weight of society and stand. He declares, “they’ll never break the shape we take,” and while this is clearly a representation of Hadreas’ personal journey to demanding acceptance from the world, the song carries a transcendental power that feels like it could graft on to other types of struggles experienced by people who have to face the choice between conformity or marginalization.
After the soaring cloudbursts of ‘Otherside’ that see Hadreas bending back like the song itself has grabbed hold of him, the night gets distinctly darker, as nights are often known to do. ‘Some Dream’ sheds light on a time where Hadreas is questioning his career choice, lamenting all the time and attention it demands, ceasing only just in time for him to realize what it’s precluded him from having. “All this, for a song?” he asks feebly to close. It’s reminiscent of the sentiment of ‘Geyser’ by Mitski, coincidentally – or perhaps not – another artist famous for integrating dance and performance into the set to give further meaning to each song. While a career in music is less mystical in the public consciousness than it has once been, there’s still much to be said for the sheer intensity that is the life of making music on deadly-serious topics and touring that music, sacrifices the path demands in return for truth in art. ‘Nothing At All’ also examines an absence of something, but in a more positive light. Arguably the finest song on Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, its hypnotic, rounded, almost industrial bass leads into a pulsing chorus and a soaring synth scale thereafter, examining a relationship that, while marked by sadness and perhaps vacant in the end, still provides everything its participants need.
Though much of the night has focused on his released music, Hadreas elects to share one glimpse into the future with ‘Photograph’, set to be the eighth track on Ugly Season. The lights in the hall turn beet red and this is the moment where he clothes himself in the veil material from the stage, writhing, coming in and out of sight underneath its many folds and layers as the song is haunted by atmospheric pianos cut through by a guitar, recalling Julee Cruise among other things. The guitars turn chaotic towards its conclusion, but the orchestral backing remains the same, like the doomed players on the Titanic. The vibe of ‘Photograph’ gives way perfectly to ‘My Body’, easily the most outright frightening song Hadreas has ever made. His singing is muffled and shaky, and in its apex, he confronts his form with a scratching, distorted voice: “I wear my body like a rotted peach / you can have it if you handle the stink”. It’s his relationship with physicality at its most vitriolic, embracing its reality without paying it any compliments – it also happens to be some of his finest musical compositions.
But the night ends on a triumphant note, with ‘Queen’, which is Hadreas staring right into the eyes of every detractor, taking every ugly stereotype levied at gay people and throwing it right back in their faces with nary a fuck to give. “No family is safe when I sashay!” The bassline stomps like a royal march, synths sparkle over top like jewels bedazzling the Queen’s regalia. Diseased, dilapidated, on the hunt for youth to corrupt – Hadreas facetiously embraces it all, even the most ridiculous and cowardly falsehoods. It’s a fantastic journey to go through Perfume Genius’ discography and hear Hadreas’ writing and production change throughout the years; with Ugly Season on the calendar, with ‘Photograph’ as a teaser, it seems his music will only be getting stranger, and more expressive, balancing darkness with sheer grace.
Review and Photos by Collin Heroux