The first time I had the opportunity to see Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, performing live was in 2015 at the 15th edition of La Primavera Sound, Barcelona's renowned summer music festival.
Even though Hadreas had already released three studio albums by that point, the crowd, with many preoccupied with drinking and chatting among themselves, seemed to still be struggling to figure him out -- musically or otherwise.
The small-framed queer singer-songwriter, dressed in a black jumpsuit, began his set with My Body, a poignant song that paints a grotesque relationship between himself and his physical body (he suffers from Crohn's disease and went through a period of alcohol/drug abuse). "I wear my body like a rotted peach/ You can have it if you handle the stink," he sung as he sauntered the stage, dripping with demure sensuality. "I'm as open as a gutted pig..." As much as it was uncomfortable for some to witness, the searingly earnest performance ranked up there with the Antony and the Johnsons set from the previous evening.
That was half-a-decade ago. Today, the Seattle-born 38-year-old returns with his fifth LP, Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, a body of work rooted in his renewed sense of physicality. A stunning departure from 2017's No Shape, the 13-track collection finds him in full command of his own body as he embraces physical strength and well-being through the rock'n'roll prism. It kicks off with Whole Life, a slow-burning ode to regret that provides the listener with some backstory ("Half of my whole life is gone/ let it drift and wash away").
On The Floor picks up the momentum with the breezy, wind-in-the-air retro soul. "On the floor I pace, I run my mouth/ I pray and wait I cross out his name on the page," he intones atop jubilant melodies. Set to electric guitars and harpsichord, Describe is a heavier offering that takes a cue from 90s alt-rock whereas Leave and Just A Touch contain the certain broodiness of Radiohead's frontman Thom Yorke. Elsewhere, there's a 50s throwback of One More Try and the new-wave energy of Your Body Changes Everything, a mid-tempo cut that perfectly encapsulates Hadreas' journey towards self-esteem and acceptance.
The verdict: Everything singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas has dabbled in as Perfume Genius has led to this pivotal point. A triumph of an album, Set My Heart is a joyous, sonically diverse celebration of body image, outward strength and inner grace.
Quotable lyrics: "Your body changes everything/ You are anchoring… And you're breaking like a wave/ Your body changes everything" (Your Body Changes Everything).
Listen to this: Whole Life, On The Floor, Without You, Your Body Changes Everything.
THE PLAYLIST
Venn / Howling
Thai rock four-piece Mattnimare may be no more, but fans fret not. The band's former members Pree Asvaraksha and Naris Saropala have joined forces on a new project, Venn. Their debut English single Howling comes with all the familiar elements of Mattnimare. In other words, it's a throwback to their previous material of brooding alt-folk melodies and poetic lyricism. "In the cold, cold night, I saw a wolf howling," Pree sets the scene in the opening verse. As the song unfolds, the lone wolf becomes a metaphor for the need to feel a sense of belonging. "I wanna go home/ Leave behind my bones, covered in stones/ I wanna go home/ See my kin," he continues over a gorgeous cello arrangement.
Ariana Grande (Feat. Justin Bieber) / Stuck With U
As if the world hadn't already had its fill of quarantine anthems, here's another one to add to the pile -- this time courtesy of pop megastars Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber. The charity single, titled Stuck With U, is a simple pop ballad sprinkled with a retro doo-wop pastiche and perfunctory isolation musings. "Got all this time on my hands/ Might as well cancel our plans," Grande offers as Bieber promptly chimes in: "There's nobody on these streets/ If you told me that the world's ending/ Ain't no other way that I can spend it." Nothing like love during the apocalypse, right?
Utada Hikaru / Time
The long-serving J-pop singer-songwriter returns with Time, a song which will be featured as the soundtrack to Nippon Television Network TV drama Bishoku Tantei Akechi Goro. Here, Hikki hearkens back to the R&B styling of her earlier material (think 1999's debut First Love up to 2009's English album, This Is The One), thus bringing back the deeply nostalgic era between late 90s and early aughts. Lyrically, Time is about two lovers who can't be together because they "can't fit in the framework of a romance". Could she be singing about a queer love? We'll let you mull that over.
Rhye / Beautiful
Love may be Jason Mraz's favourite topic to go goo-goo eyes about, but when it comes to lover's beauty, we have to hand it to Rhye's Mike Milosh. On his latest cut Beautiful inspired by the quarantine, the LA-based vocalist/multi-instrumentalist does what he does best: singing high praise of his significant other's beauty with sultry earnestness. "Beautiful woman, oh babe/ Spend some time with me," he implores. "Oh, I feel so free/ With you by my side." Considering the fact that there's a lot of couples out there struggling to keep the passion alive amid the pandemic, it's quite admirable for Milosh to still feel this way.
Jason Mraz / Wise Woman
The American feel-good troubadour teases his forthcoming LP, Look For The Good, with the uplifting single Wise Woman. Described as "a song about Mother Earth and the love and nourishment that comes from women", the track sees Mraz knee deep in a jaunty reggae production filled with more than enough good vibes to go around. "She's a green garden goddess/ Tender of the weed," he sings in the opening line, then, true to form, proceeds to fall back on the theme of love with the capital L: "Love is a gateway drug/ And the gate's unlocked for us/ Love is a wonder drug/ And it grows wild, wild, wild, wild." Set to drop next month, Look For The Good will be his seventh studio album, his first proper full-length since 2018's collaboration with indie-folk quartet Raining Jane, Know.
