Perfume Genius - Learning

Perfume Genius
Learning

*** 1/2

Learning is a devastating little record. What it lacks in longevity it compensates for in intensity, with a lyric sheet constructed almost entirely around an unflinching look at the three A’s – abuse, addiction and alienation. Creating richly heartfelt songs seems to have provided Seattle-local Mike Hadreas with a cathartic means of purging a painful past.


The intimacy of the lyrics are alleviated somewhat by disarmingly vibrant music. Most songs in the collection are grounded in chord loops hammered out with Cat Power-style minimalism on what sounds like a battered old brown honky-tonk in someone’s aunt’s lounge room, and the lo-fi recording lends the sound a comforting warmth. Over this sturdy foundation, Hadreas sweetly warbles of the lost and broken people who “didn’t have a family to begin with” (‘Lookout, Lookout’), his waifish voice carrying the kind of aching compassion redolent of Sufjan Stevens, in ‘John Wayne Gacy, Jnr’ mode.

The apparent safety of suburbia is no protection for characters like the tortured high school teacher in ‘Mr Peterson’ or ‘Perry’, who struggles on despite “marks healing on your hands”. But amidst the pain glimmer moments of redemptive beauty, like the woman and child who go out into the backyard to watch the moon rise in ‘When,’ or the luxuriant synths of ‘Gay Angels’ and ‘No Problem’ – where Hadreas dispenses with lyrics altogether and allows himself to revel in the twisting possibilities of his voice.

Although limited by an unrelenting minor palette, imperfect recording and the wrenching content of Hadreas’ biography, Learning is an unassuming but crushing debut.


First published in The Brag, Iss. 372, July 26th 2010