Perfume Genius Announces New Album
- Written by Marky Edison
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.
