Set my stream on fire
September 04, 2020

Perfume Genius to perform at a virtual concert, for $15

Perfume Genius will perform from the Palace Theater in downtown Los Angeles, on Saturday, September 19. Tickets are available in advance for $15 ($20 day of the event + $5 for access to stream an acoustic solo encore). During the concert, Perfume Genius mastermind Mike Hadreas will be joined by a six-piece band as well as a string quartet. They will perform music from Perfume Genius’ latest, critically acclaimed album 'Set My Heart on Fire Immediately'.

All of tQ's editorial staff and columnists have voted for their essential 2020 albums of the year so far, and it's a slightly left-field choice, as it is to be expected from the Quietus.

So, the top 10:

1. The Soft Pink Truth - Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase?

2. Einstürzende Neubauten - 'Alles In Allem'

3. Squarepusher - 'Be Up A Hello'

4. Beatrice Dillon - 'Workaround'

5. Jeff Parker - 'Suite for Max Brown'

6. Sex Swing - 'Type II'

7. Nadine Shah - 'Kitchen Sink'

8. Lyra Pramuk - 'Fountain'

9. Perfume Genius - 'Set My Heart On Fire Immediately'

10. Nazar - 'Guerrilla'

Perfume Genius' new album is "three-dimensional, dust-blown world that is cinematic in its grandeur and intimate in its inspection of the human form", Pitchfork states in its review (grade 9.0). The P is impressed by the style of the album - "the songs expand and contract, one minute blasting open with the melodrama of a Roy Orbison ballad, the next zooming in with surgical detail as Hadreas describes ribs that fold like fabric, a tear-streaked face, an instance of post-coital petty theft".

"I want to stay here and feel everything, not just the oblivion. That’s what I thought that freedom was, and I actively pursued that when I was younger, whether I knew it or not. And maybe I’m becoming O.K. with just being at the edge, feeling the reach for it. I’m starting to realize that the reach is really what I want" - Perfume Genius told New Yorker about his new album 'Set My Heart on Fire Immediately'. He says he wants people to feel less lonely - "That’s what I hope people feel: that something unspoken, something hard to articulate, some tension, has been understood for four minutes. There’s something about sharing any sensation, even the deepest bleakness, that makes it less bleak".

Gordi

"We take the ugliest parts of the world and make them beautiful" - the free-jazz/hip-hop band Irreversible Entanglements say about their new song 'Who Sent You'; Ash Koosha has released a cool new video for his meditative and intense track ‘Dive’, Perfume Genius is back with "music to both fight and make love to" with 'Describe'; R.A.P. Ferreira goes into trippy, jazzy territory in 'Leaving Hell'; Nordic dark folk band Wardruna combine modern and traditional on 'Gra'; Body Count go political again on 'Bum-Rush'; P.E. mix post-punk and electronica on 'Pink Shiver'; Welsh producer and vocalist Kelly Lee Owens samples the sounds of glacial ice melting on ‘Melt!’ to impressive effect; similarly, Field Works turns the echolocations of endangered bats into ambient on 'Ultrasonic'; singer/producer Velvet Negroni released a hard-hitting, psychedelic R&B song 'Bagette'; 'Crunch' is a noisy indie rock song by Jordana; It Only Ends Once is an interesting blend of screamo, black metal, and post-rock; Injury Reserve continue their avant-rap path with 'Hoodwinked'; Dirty Projectors described their new song 'Overlord' as "Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’ for an Amazon Prime world”; White Stones go in psychedelic prog-death metal direction on 'Drowned In Time'; XL Recordings co-founder Richard Russell released a Ghostface Killah collaboration '03:15AM/Caviar'; Elder present their concept album about the lifespan of a civilization with 'Embers'; Disclosure go to the dancefloor with 'Tondo'; 'Sandwiches' by Gordi is a usual-sounding song, but there's a special kind of wormth to it; Methyl Ethel go into sympho-indie territory with 'Majestic AF'; The Magnetic Fields don't need much explaining with a song titled 'The Day the Politicians Died'.