On May 15 Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) will release his fifth studio album, Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, via Matador Records. The first single, ‘Describe’, is a track that captures a sense living in the moment through a heavy fog of grisly distortion and tumbling slide guitars. Hadreas notes, “it started as a really sombre 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."

The music video for ‘Describe’ was directed by Hadreas and features Seattle-based choreographer Kate Wallich’s dance company The YC. Wallich and Hadreas worked together on 2019’s The Sun Still Burns Here, a collaborative dance performance in which Hadreas wrote the music and performed.

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, Matt Chamberlin and Rob Moose. It was recorded in Los Angeles, where Perfume Genius settled in 2017 with longtime partner and musical collaborator Alan Wyffels.

Apre have the video for brand new single ‘Your Heart’s Like A Jungle’, which is available now on Polydor Records. Following a series of acclaimed introductory EPs, the London-based band have cut their teeth touring with the likes of Sam Fender, Friendly Fires, Inhaler and Lany. ‘Your Heart’s Like A Jungle’ is, according to Apre, “about being lost in a relationship. It describes that frustrating feeling when you are trying your best to love someone, but you fail to understand their emotions and get lost in your feelings for them. It’s about the dead ends that mean you will struggle to get along, and the hardships when trusting the person you really love not to break your heart.”

Whether examining the strains on modern relationships or that broader, political sense of chaos, finding your way through ‘the jungle’ is fundamental to the ambitions of Apre.  Fronted by co-vocalists Charlie and Jules, the band are as inspired by the socially conscious, observational lyricism of Pet Shop Boys as the alternative indie of Foals - often masking intimate home-truths behind innately massive-sounding songs, such as ‘Your Heart’s Like A Jungle’. Still a group in relative infancy, they may have started life as an outlet for escapism – the boys did, after all, meet in a West London chess club – but across their eclectic, experimental and red-blooded EPs to date, Apre have also found their voice.

If the band increasingly seem to capture times of crisis (emotional, and generational), part of what makes Apre interesting is the way they engage with the madness. Mixing shrewd lyrical storytelling with occasionally surreal touches, the results are transformed into something universal, positive, and affirming.