Photo Credit: Camille Vivier
Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) has shared a new single, ‘On The Floor’, from the forthcoming new album Set My Heart On Fire Immediately which will be released May 15 via Matador / Remote Control. ‘On the Floor’ is a full-bodied, celebratory pop song that plays with the album’s themes of love, sex, memory and the body, channeling popular music mythologies while irreverently authoring its own. As with the last single ‘Describe’, Perfume Genius directed the video for ‘On The Floor’, on which he notes, “A crush can really live on its own, separate from you and the person you are pining for. The fantasy feels like its own world, obsession can turn the person you are longing for into a monument that has less and less to do with them and more to do with the idea of love itself and what it can do, what it can soothe or quiet or light on fire. I wanted to show that maddening, solitary part of desire but keep the core which is a real warmth and belief that you have something crucial to share with each other.”
Last month Perfume Genius shared the album’s first single ‘Describe’. It was called by The Observer a “full-on grunge fever dream”, while The Guardian said, “Bass grinds through PG’s latest: baroque sludge metal recorded in acute detail, as if watching every fibre of a muscle flex… It’s the perfect foil for his whispered confessions about sensory deprivation”, and Q noted, “(‘Describe’) streaks melodious hooks across a fuzz-guitar backing that sounds like a slow-motion Weezer”. Pitchfork said, ‘Describe’ captures both sides of Perfume Genius perfectly, as pointedly dissonant as it is quietly rapturous.”
Set My Heart On Fire Immediately was produced by GRAMMY-winning 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.
The album explores and subverts concepts of masculinity and traditional roles, and introduces decidedly American musical influences. “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”
AN IMPRESSION OF PERFUME GENIUS’ SET MY HEART ON FIRE IMMEDIATELY
By Ocean Vuong
—Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
