The star of Mike Hadreas continues to rise. Better known as Perfume Genius, the vamping indie songwriter with a cult following, Hadreas is now set to release his fifth album in just a few months. Following up 2017’s widely acclaimed No Shape, which was nominated for an engineering Grammy, Set My Heart On Fire Immediately will be out May 15 via his longtime label partner Matador Records.
An openly queer songwriter who has been praised again and again for the immediacy and intimacy of his work, Hadreas is kicking off the new album with a barn burner of a single, “Describe.” The self-directed accompanying video is above, which depicts “an end of the world where there are no boundaries, there are no edges, no rules, or the rules are completely new with how you interact with each other and the space around you.”
What’s also fascinating is that this song began as something spare and slow. “It started as a really somber ballad,” Hadreas said of how “Describe” began. “It was very minimal and very slow. And then it turned into this beast of a song. I started writing about when you are in such a dark place that you don’t even remember what goodness is or what anything feels like. And so, the idea was having someone describe that to you, because you forgot or can’t get to it.”
He also said of the album as a whole:
“I wanted to feel more open, more free and spiritually wild, and I’m in a place now where those feelings are very close — but it can border on being unhinged. I wrote these songs as a way to be more patient, more considered — to pull at all these chaotic threads hovering around me and weave them in to something warm, thoughtful and comforting.”
Watch the “Describe” video above.
Set My Heart On Fire Immediately is out 05/15 via Matador Records. Pre-order it here.
