It’s strange there are still tickets for sale. Very few artists have released no duds, and it’s particularly rare that one should have put out three almost flawless offerings since their inception. But that’s the situation: regardless of how good Perfume Genius is, Lido is full, but (unjustifiably) not sold out.
And he is good, very good. Opener ‘My Body’, from this year’s release ‘Too Bright’ is a weird, savage starter, showcasing the more muscular, synth-stabbing direction the new material encompasses. And this weight carries over to the old stuff. ‘Take Me Home’ and ‘Dark Parts’, coming immediately after the opener, are as pretty as you’d expect, but they sound bigger, fuller, more confident than before.
I saw Perfume Genius this summer, at a festival in Poland. Back then the new album wasn’t out, and only a couple of the new tracks got aired; it was 95% material from ‘Learning’ and ‘Put Your Back N 2 It’. So the performance reflected those albums’ gossamer-light melodies and heavy, haunting sadness. Perfume Genius, aka Mike Hadreas, seemed to hover far off inside his skin, or somewhere just outside. He seemed to tremble, unsure of how to hold himself, of whether he’d get to the end. It’s nothing like that tonight. With his bold new songs revealed, the change he’s undergone in less than six months is profound. Sure he still vanishes from time to time into a private jet of dry ice, and his black-clad body can disappear against the black backdrop, magician-like, leaving his head and hands wobbling dismembered in the air, but he’s always there.
He writhes and bucks and dances and owns his songs unapologetically. Laterally, he has a very flexible neck; it stirs the soundwaves. He screams. Even the ballads seem bolstered by a new strength. It’s sometimes not a coherent set, but then his albums hinge on extremely dark changes of emotion, so perhaps coherence can’t be met yet. He plays songs, like ‘All Waters’ which some bands might not play live. It sounds too much like a sketch. But whether it is or it isn’t, it’s formed enough to be staggeringly beautiful, which is the factual heart of this music, both old and new.
During this performance he reveals a soul that is as vulnerable as before, but he’s visibly growing into himself and outwards, with more anger and armour to protect him. It’s a bristling kind of transformation that makes me think he’s going to be around for a long while, not using the new layers of his music to hide behind, but as extra canvas on which to paint the sad, beautiful colours within.
by Dominic Blewett
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