Perfume Genius — Set My Heart On Fire Immediately ↵    Katie Hawthorne (Skinny) napsala 2. května 2017 o albu ‘No Shape’: „Pouze Perfume Genius mohl z těchto znepokojivých časů vykouzlit pohádku. ‘No Shape’ dokumentuje hluboká minima a nejzářivější výšiny. Čtvrté album Mike Hadrease, drsné a svěží ve stejném tahu štětcem, oslavuje hrubou sílu, která může trvat, než se uvolní a najde novou normalitu. A dala mu plné hodnocení 5 stars.
↵    Mike Hadreas čerpá inspiraci z klasického popu, čerpá z odkazu Cyndi Lauper a Elvise, ale dekonstruuje zvuky svým podhodnoceným způsobem. Kdo nejpozději ve čtvrté písni ‘Jason’ nepochopí, že jde o výjimečné album, může jít krájet salám do lahůdek číňanům.
↵    Jeho třetí album, třpytivé „Too Bright“ z roku 2014 přineslo nový smysl pro dynamiku a vzdor. Na ‘No Shape’ viděl dokončení této kreativy v provedení otočky o 180°, obchodování s minimalismem starého pojetí s nově objeveným maximalismem. V té době Hadreas řekl NME, že chce, aby věci zněly „jakoby překroucené nebo jako od nějakého parchanta“, inspiroval se a vzdával hold ikonám, jako jsou Kate Bush, Prince a Queen. V průběhu tohoto procesu začal chápat, že nová současnost popu je podvratná.
↵    Rodák ze Seattlu vysvětlil, že vždycky byl neklidný kvůli změnám — „neustále hledá a vyžaduje velký pocit“ — ale nyní se stává méně „posedlý touto myšlenkou odchodu, změny, posunů, prostě všechno vyhodí a odchází“. Dodal: „Začínám si uvědomovat, že možná existuje i jiná cesta. Můžu mít víc a všechno si ponechat.“ Název nového alba „Set My Heart On Fire Immediately“ — těch šest slov prodchnutých vášní, naléhavosti a stejně evokujících jako povídka s fikcí, naznačuje, že bude následovat stejným způsobem. Každý, kdo očekává další velké a jasné popové album, však bude překvapen. Teď už víte, že parchanti neloví na ulici, ale tam, kde se jim věří. Birth name: Mike Hadreas
Born: September 25, 1981
Location: Tacoma ~ Seattle, WA ~ Everett, WA
Album release: 15th May, 2020
Record Label: Matador
Duration:     49:45
Tracks:
01. Whole Life   3:54  
02. Describe   4:44  
03. Without You   2:36  
04. Jason   3:06  
05. Leave   3:06  
06. On the Floor   5:04  
07. Your Body Changes Everything   4:14  
08. Moonbend   5:22  
09. Just a Touch   3:29  
10. Nothing at All   4:27  
11. One More Try   3:02  
12. Some Dream   4:19  
13. Borrowed Light   3:22 
REVIEW
Luke Morgan Britton ⌊ 13th May 2020 ⌋ Score: ★★★★
↵    Experimentalist finds strength in restraint. Mike Hadreas takes inspiration from classic pop, drawing on Cyndi Lauper and Elvis, but deconstructs the sounds in his own understated way
↵    Mike Hadreas’ previous album as Perfume Genius, 2017’s ‘No Shape’, felt something like catharsis. Bold, bombastic and experimental, it was eons away from his piano~led lo~fi early work. Hadreas’ first two records (2010’s ‘Learning’ and 2012’s ‘Put Your Back N 2 It’) were marked by their emotionally raw and affecting ballads as well as the singer’s tender, tremulous delivery.
↵    His third album, 2014’s shimmering ‘Too Bright’ brought a new sense of dynamism and defiance. ‘No Shape’ saw the completion of this creative 180, trading the minimalism of old with newfound maximalism. At the time, Hadreas told NME that he wanted things to sound “sort of twisted or fucked~up” and had been inspired by and paying homage to icons such as Kate Bush, Prince and Queen. In the process he’d become a subversive new pop presence.
↵    The title of new album ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’, those six words drenched in passion and urgency and as evocative as a flash fiction short story, suggests it will follow in the same vein. Anyone expecting another big and bright pop record, though, will be surprised.
↵    In a recent interview, the Seattle native explained he’s always been restless for change — “constantly searching for and demanding a big feeling” — but is now becoming less “obsessed with this idea of leaving, and changing and shifting, and just blowing everything up and going”. He added: “I’m starting to realise that maybe there’s another way. I can have more, and keep everything.”
↵   Here, then, Hadreas’ explores more organic, nuanced sounds. He may have dialled the swagger back a little for album five, but his music still simmers with intensity, rather than bursting into flames. He has explained that he wanted the album to be “warm, thoughtful and comforting.” For this he looked to classic~era pop. 
↵   Opening track ‘Whole Life’, which sees Hadreas — who, despite his youthful looks, is somehow 38 — ruminate on and ultimately accept the inevitable passing of time, is a rousing ballad reminiscent of country singer Skeeter Davis’ 1962 heartbreak standard ‘The End of the World’. ‘Without You’ is as evocative as a Springsteen anthem and ‘On The Floor’ represents his take on the joyous pop of Cyndi Lauper. He even goes a bit Elvis on the mournful ‘One More Try’.
↵   In a short essay published alongside the album, writer Ocean Vuong described ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’ as a “soft storm” adding: “This is music to both fight and make love to. To be shattered and whole with.” Indeed this sense of duality is at the heart of the record. Moments of exuberance sit next to those of calm. The delicate ‘Leave’ and warped, hypnotic ‘Moonbend’ are as hushed and intimate as Hadreas’ early material; ‘Nothing at All’ is a more full~on affair. Lead single ‘Describe’, meanwhile, is drenched in distortion before the song gives way to an ambient stillness.
↵   Ultimately Hadreas has, with this album, proven his own hypothesis: you don’t necessarily have to blow things up to move forward.
↵  https://www.nme.com/
Description:
↵    Set My Heart On Fire Immediately is the fifth studio album from Perfume Genius that will be released May 15th on Matador Records. It sees artist and musician Mike 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 Hadreas plays with themes of love, sex, memory and the body, channeling popular music mythologies while irreverently authoring its own — from the delirious, Cyndi Lauper~nodding celebratory pop of ‘On The Floor’, specters of Elvis on haunted tremolo waltz ‘One More Try’, to the harpsichord punctuated baroque pop of ‘Jason’, and gliding steel guitar and Balearic rhythm of ‘Without You’.
↵    “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.”
↵    First album taster ‘Describe’ captures this sense of fleetingness and living in the moment through a heavy fog of grizzly distortion and tumbling slide guitars: “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 that 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.”  ↵
Shop: https://shopuk.matadorrecords.com/
Website: https://perfumegenius.org/