Perfume Genius aka Mike Hadreas and the fiercest band he has ever assembled, bring his pristine new album Glory to Her Majesty’s Theatre Ballarat.
Glory, produced by Blake Mills and released on longtime label home Matador Records, marks the seventh studio album in Perfume Genius’ immaculate body of work, which includes collaborations with such artists as including Christine And The Queens, Sharon Van Etten, Weyes Blood, Cate Le Bon and most recently, reuniting with Aldous Harding for the incredible ‘No Front Teeth’.
Promoting his string of beloved albums, being on tour and dwelling in the public eye, clashed with Mike Hadreas’ innate impulse toward isolation. For Glory, he discovered a new songwriting process because he welcomed the dynamics of a group, leaving room in his compositions for his friends to flesh out the arrangements.
‘I’m more engaged with the band and the audience. I’m still on some wild tear, but there’s more access and it’s more collaborative, in a way that makes it better, but also scary, because it feels more vulnerable.’
With Glory, Mike Hadreas continues to rebuke gay culture’s tendency to view ageing as a tragedy, peering past youth’s debaucherous prerogatives to reveal the possibilities of its aftermath. ‘There’s a map for the first part,’ he says about being young and gay. ‘There’s books about hustlers and drinking and drugs and going out. And then, after that, there’s not a lot.’
Glory furthers a concept he began to explore on the monumental Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, recasting life’s lengthy middle as an era of both wizened reflection and of navigating, with a bit more knowledge, the enduring mysteries of closeness, friendship and sex. The way that you live now is OK, this brilliant, generous album tells us, and at the same time, the way you’ll learn how to live in the future will be just fine, too.
