Perfume Genius - Learning
Emotive, delicate beauty.
The most poignant beauty often comes out of the most desolate sadness – something to do with the triumph, of the bending the worst into the best. And so it is with Perfume Genius, Seattleite Mike Hadreas's way of dealing with his darkness. 'Learning' is largely piano based, simple melodic lines backing the frail, almost falsetto vocals. It's melancholic, but it's so much more.
Early single 'Mr Peterson' commemorates the life of a dead teacher - “When I was sixteen / He jumped off a building.... I hope that there's room for you up above, or down below.” It's sung so matter of factly, but the delivery renders it almost celebratory. The titular character clearly had an impact on Hadreas, giving him “a tape of Joy Division / he told me there was part of him missing” (given the backstory of this record, it seems to fair to accept the songs as biographical, rather than fictional). That's not to ignore the abuse of the teacher-pupil relationship implied in lines like “He let me smoke weed in the back of his truck / If I told him I loved him enough.”
The production is sparse, which works well with the music, burdened with emotion as it is.
'Gay Angels' is almost wordless, and the way its melodies are sung over slowburn keys is reminiscent of church music. Given that space within the music, the melodies are exposed, but simultaneously are not immediate. As with much of the record, the delicate synth strings of 'No Problem' take several listens to pass from ambient to graceful.
Sequenced in chronological order, the emotional and technical progress can be felt. By 'Perry' layers of instruments and vocals are being utilised, things are getting denser. The lyrics are more accepting of life too – on 'Never Did' Hadreas sings “It's all part of his plan / It's all in his hands.” Whatever he has been through, 'Learning' sees Perfume Genius crumbling his demons to dust, and rendering that dust into songs of emotive, delicate beauty.
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