My Little Underground Essays is a place for contributors to write about whatever they like, however they like. Here, the rules of avoiding lyrics and focusing on sound, process, and gear are lifted; writers might indulge in analysis of lyrics, band history, and even introduce stories from their own lives. We hope you enjoy our first essay from Luke Jarzyna.
As the year end sweepstakes begin to kick off, I’m staking my claim: Perfume Genius made the best album of 2020. In many ways Set My Heart On Fire Immediately explores the same musical space and thematic territories that Mike Hadreas and Alan Wyffels have plumbed since their debut Learning. But on SMHOFI, Perfume Genius and their cast of studio musicians deploy an entwined musical and thematic palette that seems like a distillation of Hadreas’ and Wyffels’ body of work thus far. Perfume Genius’ questions have never rung out with more clarity and resonance.
Hadreas, Wyfells, their producer Blake Mills, and additional collaborators exert a collective pressure on pop music formalism across SMHOFI’s 13 songs. The thematic alignment between lyrics and music makes SMHOFI a particularly joyous record to experience, and one that cooperates with a large range of moods. On past Perfume Genius albums, the songs’ themes occasionally achieve a level of high saturation. The line from 2014’s Too Bright “I wear my body like a rotted peach” sounds exactly as wretched as you would expect. Albums like Learning and Put Ur Back N 2 It seem to be revered by fans for the emotional devastation and weepiness they inspire. Perhaps Hadreas’ negotiations with abjection is what Ocean Vuong gestures towards when he writes “When listening to Perfume Genius, a powerful joy courses through me because I know the context of its arrival—the costs are right there in the lyrics.” This connection between the joy Vuong experiences and the music’s arrival articulates how Perfume Genius’ music brings its listeners into a network of feeling, feelings that seem often too tender for the light of day.
I began listening to Perfume Genius as a 17 year old who didn’t sleep very much and had a mysterious, stress induced gum infection. In many ways I heard Perfume Genius bear witness to the horror and devastation that permeated my worldview. Hadreas and Wyfells explored similar emotionally raw themes in a new form in their 2019 dance collaboration with Kate Wallich “The Sun Still Burns Here.” In a negative review for The New York Times, Gia Kourlas writes that the experimental production “focuses more on expressing states of emotion that come off as angsty rather than fragile or vulnerable.” Angst is a central preoccupation for Perfume Genius’ stellar if also raw and uncompromising discography. However on SMHOFI, Perfume Genius achieve a new delicacy in their treatment of angst through formal risks and oblique narration.
The album begins in theatrical ambivalence, as Hadreas sings “Half of my whole life is gone / let it drift and wash away.” We hear this ambivalent posture again in the distant narrational tactic of “Jason.” This spare, eye-witness account of hooking up with a confused guy makes this portrait all the more touching: “I was proud to seem / warm and mothering / just for a night / even through all the drink…when we woke up / he just asked me to leave.” Triumphant harpsichords and a self-assured bassline bring us into this erotic interstice alongside Hadreas. The dynamics escalate, and the strings crank into the song’s final, underwhelming lyric “I stole $20 from his blue jeans / I’m pretty sure that he saw me.” This unbound, semantically upwards arc departs from the emotionally turbulent fuck; not a walk of shame but an exit, a crest content with its own lack of closure, the speaker charmed by his petty criminality.
A dynamic use of space and registers characterizes the sounds on SMHOFI. On “Leave,” a sparse chorus of synth harp and harmonic, high-pitched strings creates a ribbony backdrop for Hadreas. He sings “Turn the camera on / and leave…Begging like a dog/ ignore me…Barely holding on / now I’m singing.” According to the liner notes, this song features the fewest number of collaborators on the album. “Leave” is a spare yet precise account of the classically Perfume Genius interplay between austerity and abundance. Hadreas draws an apostrophic relation between the listener, the moon, and the speaker on “Moonbend.” Sam Gendel’s woozy sax pulses and creeps. Organ, strings, and synth oscillate. We listen and lurk in the song’s bewitched silences.
Perfume Genius arrive at some of their finest grooves with this collection of studio musicians. “On The Floor” stands out in particular. Past Perfume Genius bangers like “Queen” and “Slip Away” espouse a weighty grandiosity, epic to the point of near combustion. You won’t find such weightiness here due to the fabulous ensemble that backs Hadreas; in addition to Pino Palladino and Blake Mills, none other than Phoebe Bridgers sings harmony vocals in what has to be her most subtle musical contribution of 2020. “How long ’til this heart isn’t mine?” Hadreas’ lovelorn speaker asks in a state of self-immolative yearning. Beneath “On The Floor’s” propulsive, vigorous groove resides a desire not to possess another but to see with a more broad optic. The rhythmic and erotic “On The Floor” is a career stand out for Perfume Genius, and one I anticipate they will perform live for years to come.
Hadreas describes live performances of the song “Queen” as a kind of ritual, like casting a spell. We hear such a spell on the operatic, emotional peak of “Some Dream.” The spell builds towards this peak across “Some Dream’s” impressive three-part structure. Mills, Chamberlain, Gendel, Wyffels, and Hadreas fire at all cylinders here, charging through several stanzas of lyrics in a dense wall of sound until the percussion strips away, leaving a thin horizon of eery saxophone and strings behind Hadreas as he sings “All I mean to love is gone to the ground / Gone the minute I stepped out and looked around. All this for a song?”
Perfume Genius have spent their whole career contemplating the body and its problems. On this latest, majestic effort, I feel they have articulated something not only vulnerable and heartbreaking in its thematics, but something that articulates a truth about how we live with our bodies and experience attachments. I’m so impressed by the compositional integrity of these songs, and the way their beating hearts seem to reveal themselves. The number of truly wonderful moments on SMHOFI exceeds the limits of what this appreciation essay could do. I knew upon hearing this album for the first time on Spotify that I would need to shell out the cash for the vinyl to get it “in the room.” Few things made such excellent company in this strange and savage year. Listen to "Jason" below:
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