Album Review: Perfume Genius, IMMEDIATELY Remixes

Perfume Genius’s Mike Hadreas came of age with last year’s extraordinary Set My Heart On Fire Immediately. That record, forged from his love of Tori Amos, My Bloody Valentine and ’80s dream-pop was gorgeous yet forceful – an LP that seemed to catalyse the confusion of frustration, despair and hope Hadreas felt in the dog days of Trump’s America.

This remix collection takes the source material by the scruff and marches it through a hall of mirrors. The results are fascinating, beguiling and occasionally discombobulating. Typical is AG Cook’s transformation of ‘Describe’ into bugged out hyperpop, a jackhammer bass doing battle with Hadreas’s dislocated vocals. It’s a daring twist on the original.

The opposite fate awaits ‘On The Floor’, reworked by Initial Talk as an ‘80s stomper. The track was plenty stomping to begin with – now that sense of twinkling joy is maximised irresistibly.

The hyperpop overtones are even more explicit on the “Harlecore” remix of ‘Just A Touch’ by Danny Harle, the leading figure behind hyperpop exponents PC Music (along with Cook). Frantic and pummelling it’s an acquired taste, but Immediately is a remix album that will make you glad you held tight and followed it down the rabbit hole.