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| I like how the writing evokes the homemade feel of his older album covers, but makes it all more technicolor. |
He started his MySpace page in 2008, while recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction. Reading an account of Hadreas' pre Perfume Genius life is a painful affair: Receiving death threats at high school as the only openly gay student and dropping out before finishing, getting hospitalized after being attacked by 'a carload of young men' while walking down the street, moving to Brooklyn and falling into alcoholism and drug abuse, moving back home to live with his mom and stepdad for rehab. It turned out the best therapy, as is often the case, was making music, so he began uploading videos of himself playing piano and singing, and soon enough he was signed by Matador Records. He became Perfume Genius, and released his debut album Learning in 2010.
Hadreas' voice is thin and trembling. His songs are simple, short, little more than sketches. And they demand your full attention. What's amazing about his music is how extremely intimate and personal it feels. Although he's been in his thirties for most of his Perfume Genius' career, he sounds like just a teenager, discovering his creativity and talent for the first time, and as a listener I'm taken along on this journey. His victories become my victories. While his debut album and 2012 follow-up Put Your Back N 2 It featured mostly simple, acoustic instrumentation (but truckloads of beautiful and memorable songs), he took a dramatic turn towards more electronics, more explosions, creepy soundscapes and abstract experiments on 2014's breakthrough Too Bright. I loved it to bits, and in the following years, amazing little drips, like Jonathan, his 2015 collaboration with Christine and the Queens, or his 2016 cover of Elvis' "Can't help falling in love" for a Prada advertising campaign, had me in awe at the emotional power of this man's music. When No Shape's first single "Slip away" arrived in March last year, I was at first a bit hesitant. It's the loudest and busiest Perfume Genius song by a far stretch, and the video was also a bit overwhelming in all its technicolor production. Had Hadreas forgotten what made his music so memorable in the first place?
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| Not sure why he keeps doing this off-shoulder thing, but hey man, you do you. |
I needn't have worried. For No Shape is all about diversity, and for every loud, triumphant "Slip away" and "Wreath", there's a barely whispered "Every night" and "Die 4 you". Hadreas has discovered that such contrasts even within a song, such as on jaw-dropping opener "Otherside", make the impacts of both the highs and lows exponentially greater. Adding to the sonic pallette are the understated baroque-pop of "Valley", the sassy funk of "Go ahead" (following up on Too Bright's "Fool"), and the near ambient feel on "Choir" and "Braid". The instrumentation is impressively varied, every song creating its own very distinct world to the same extent as on masterpieces like Kid A. There are absolutely gorgeous live string sections on many songs, but rather than getting sappy, they challenge and drive the songs forward. And the way Hadreas combines them with other instruments, vocal arrangements and mystical percussion in ever restless curiosity is fascinating.
Hadreas' lyrics have always been on the minimalist side. Or perhaps pointillist. Often seemingly meaningless two-word phrases are strung together so they only vaguely make sense. But it's a technique he's perfected for a long time (check out "AWOL marine", opener on Put Your Back N 2 It), and still uses on the majority of the songs on No Shape. Barely around twenty words, the lyrics on "Otherside", "Choir", "Braid" and "Alan" read like perfect little poems. On other songs Hadreas is atypically wordy, but no less eloquent. The wonderfully defiant "Go ahead" speaking out against religious homophobes always gets me: "If you need to take a moment, take a moment. If you need you can even say a little prayer for me. Baby I'm already walking in the light."
I'm both impressed and very pleased that the relentless musical experimentation hardly anywhere gets in the way of the emotional impact. Maybe "Sides" is the one song that would have been better off with a more stripped-back instrumentation, as I can't really make out the intention of the song behind its flashy embellishments. But still, 12 out of 13 tracks here are jaw-dropping successes. And again, the emotional impact packed by naked album closer "Alan" is just multiplied tenfold by the sonic and lyrical experiments preceding it. If I'm out and about I'll tend to listen to the first, riveting half, and the second, meditative half is better suited for quiet evenings. Both versions of the album strike a massive emotional blow. While I didn't play the second half quite as much in the beginning, it's only gotten better with time, and that's what really sealed this album in first place for me. Hats and shirts off for Perfume Genius.
Best tracks: "Wreath", "Otherside", "Die 4 you", "Go ahead", "Alan", "Slip away" (yes that's half the album, sorry).
(Yes there are a lot of "half"s here, maybe I'm influenced by the book series I'm currently reading, The Shattered Sea trilogy, whose titles read "Half a king", "Half the world", and "Half a war".)
