This Friday, June 17 Perfume Genius will release his new album, Ugly Season via Matador Records. To coincide with the release of the album, Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) teamed with renowned visual artist Jacolby Satterwhite for a 30 minute film featuring Hadreas and the music of Ugly Season. Entitled Pygmalion’s Ugly Season, the film – both stunning and surreal – is out today and available to view HERE.
PYGMALION’S UGLY SEASON
A SHORT FILM BY JACOLBY SATTERWHITE
Final YouTube link – https://youtu.be/JQ5kdR_N3Vo
The ten songs that make up Ugly Season began as an accompaniment to Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) and choreographer Kate Wallich’s dance piece, The Sun Still Burns Here, which was commissioned by the Seattle Theatre Group and Mass MoCA and performed via residencies in Seattle, Minneapolis, New York City, and Boston throughout 2019. Hadreas developed all new music for the work, which was then refined and expanded upon separately in the studio with long-time partner Alan Wyffels and producer Blake Mills.
These sessions were collaborative in nature. “Some were ‘traditional’ songs that I took into the studio, while other pieces were born out of improvisations between Blake and I. Alan wrote ‘Scherzo’ in its entirety,” says Hadreas. The presence of these external voices – Wyffels, Mills, and Wallich – gives Ugly Season’s songs a shape and character that is singular in the P.G. oeuvre. Moments of melody and pop-songcraft intermingle with operatic multi-movement compositions steeped in pulsing percussion and alien mood. During the dance piece’s initial run, Hadreas shared two of the project’s compositions – ‘Pop Song’ and ‘Eye in the Wall.’
With the onset of the pandemic in 2020, it was no longer possible to perform The Sun Still Burns Here in the spirit it was conceived. Hadreas offered the now-completed recordings up to Satterwhite, known for his immersive multidisciplinary technique that fuses live video, 3-D animation.
“I gave him free reign,” says Hadreas. “We’re both the same age, I feel very aligned with Jacolby when it comes to taste and certain pop culture obsessions. There is also a spiritual harmony between us in the way we approach work and the similar energetic spaces we want to inhabit, realize and share.”
“Mike and I are both writing scripts,” explains Satterwhite. “My visual narrative serendipitously mirrors the lyrical direction in his music; it’s a rare, like-minded bond. It’s a creation myth. How do you architecturally mold and render an idealized version of utopia? It’s about making something that you desire so beyond your scope that it’s hard to grapple into a concrete form.”
Ugly Season bookends a two-year period of intense creativity from Perfume Genius, which includes the full-length Set My Heart of Fire Immediately, that album’s remixed counterpart Immediately, the dance piece, and the subsequent film collaboration with Satterwhite. It is a stand-alone record, but it encompasses the mood, sweep, and moment of these works. It began within a physically and intimate space, but has since taken up residence in digital-unreality. Where it’s going is different than where it started.
In support of Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, Hadreas appeared on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!, played a global live stream from The Palace Theater in downtown Los Angeles and published Immediately, the book companion to the new album featuring iconic portraits of Perfume Genius by celebrated French photographer Camille Vivier. Perfume Genius also appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Following the release of the album, Perfume Genius released IMMEDIATELY Remixes which sees every song on Set My Heart On Fire Immediately remixed in original running sequence by an all-star cast. In addition to Boy Harsher and Cook the lineup includes Jaakko Eino Kaleivi, Jim-E Stack, Planningtorock, Jenny Hval, Initial Talk, Boy Harsher, Nídia, Danny L Harle, Westerman, Actress, Koreless and Katie Dey.
UGLY SEASON TRACKLIST:
- Just a Room
- Herem
- Teeth
- Pop Song
- Scherzo
- Ugly Season
- Eye in the Wall
- Photograph
- Hellbent
- Cenote
More About Perfume Genius
Hadreas grew up in Seattle, WA and started his music career in 2008. He released his debut album Learning in 2010 via long-time label home Matador, and it instantly caught the attention of critics. “The songs on Hadreas’ full-length debut are eviscerating and naked,” said Pitchfork, “with heartbreaking sentiments and bruised characterizations delivered in a voice that ranges from an ethereal croon to a slightly cracked warble.” These descriptors became the hallmarks of Perfume Genius – Hadreas’ unique ability to convey emotional vulnerability not only lyrically, but with his impressively nuanced vocals.
His following album, Put Your Back N 2 It was released in 2012 and continued to build both his audience and critical acclaim. 2014’s Too Bright, exhibited a massive leap forward in both production and confidence. Co-produced by Adrian Utley of Portishead, the album featured the stand-out single, ‘Queen’. The track quickly became a queer anthem and a powerful statement of being. Hadreas performed the song on Late Night with David Letterman.
In 2017, Perfume Genius released the GRAMMY-nominated No Shape, an album that would crystalize his fan base world-wide and bring mainstream awareness to his art. The record was produced by Blake Mills (Fiona Apple, Alabama Shakes). “If you listen to the four Perfume Genius albums in chronological order, you can hear Hadreas healing himself in real time, moving toward an emancipation that seems, suddenly, to have come to pass,” said The New Yorker. “The center of his music has always been a defiant delicacy- a ragged, affirmative understanding of despair. ‘No Shape’ finds him unexpectedly victorious, his body exalted.” Over the course of the campaign he appeared on multiple late-night television shows and graced the cover of The Fader.
In 2020 Hadreas released is critical masterpiece Set My Heart On Fire Immediately and appeared Jimmy Kimmel Live! performing “Jason,” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert performing “Whole Life” and performed “On The Floor” on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Set My Heart On Fire Immediately was released on Matador Records to worldwide acclaim. The album was also produced by GRAMMY-winning producer Blake Mills and featured contributions from musicians Phoebe Bridgers, Jim Keltner, Pino Palladino, Matt Chamberlin and Rob Moose 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.
Perfume Genius’ music has played a central role in a number of films and television including The Goldfinch, The Society, 13 Reasons Why, Booksmart and Eighth Grade. He has collaborated with artists including Christine And The Queens, Sharon Van Etten, Weyes Blood, Cate Le Bon, Anna Calvi, King Princess and more. Hadreas has also collaborated with brands like Prada and W Hotels on special projects. His albums have been nominated for a GRAMMY Award and a GLAAD Media Award and have topped numerous Decade-end lists including Billboard’s, Pitchfork’s, Crack’s, Paste’s and more.
