Learning

Perfume Genius is the moniker of Mike Hadreas. It’s an unusual, but oddly fitting signature for a musician who makes fragrant electronic music, the notes of his first album Learning subtle, yet intoxicating. In promotional shots, he appears scuffed and unclothed, his physical nakedness replicated in the raw, exposed feeling of songs like ‘Gay Angels’ and ‘When’. Doom-laden organ sounds, splashes of piano and the gentle pitter-patter of electronic beats all rain down on his parade.
The overwhelming impression is of an alienated and angst-ridden soul struggling to deal with the ills of life, with the spectral vocals emphasising Hadreas’ sense of detachment. There is also, at times, an unnerving thrill to the music, a creepiness and a foreboding that reaches a crescendo with the shocking revelation of ‘Mr Petersen’. Anguished observations are embellished with a poetic turn of phrase that recalls Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, another fantastically named solo act that revels in stripped-back sounds and understated, but disarmingly honest sentiments.
The aforementioned CFTPA aside, there are echoes of other introspective artists – Bright Eyes suggested by the odd, but intimate lyrical detail of songs such as ‘Write To Your Brother’ and ‘Perry’, Angelo Badalamenti evoked in the languid, but ominous ambience that shrouds much of the record. And yet Perfume Genius remains his own, sad-eyed man, the creator of ten songs that waft by in a fleeting thirty minutes, but whose impact lingers long in the memory.

KEY TRACK: ‘MR PETERSEN’