Perfume Genius – Learning (Organs)
4/5
By: Tim Dellow
Following the kind of hyperbolic blog love that we now see over the slightest flicker of inspiration recorded in Garage Band that welcomed Perfume Genius into existence, Michael Hadreas has, with this document, vaulted the near impossible first hurdle of the music industry today: released a debut album before a fickle community moves on.
Somewhat morbidly, the uninvited attention that his music received in its infancy seems to follow a biographical trend in his music of child abuse and sexual confusion. Almost immediately, these chronological diary entries confront you with the line “No one will answer your prayers until you take off your dress”, a violently sensationalist opening which is more effective than a thousand words of teenage angst from any number of pantomime metal bands, in the song ‘Learning’ which begins a downward spiral of mistrust of those in positions of power or authority.
A sense of isolation and communities that are maybe too closely knit pervades the tuneful ‘Lookout, Lookout’ with its snapshots of childhood sexuality and gender confusion encouraged by adults forming a kind of audio Gummo and bringing into question the theme of what is “right” in different societies. Like the film Freaks where misfits with irregular outsider rituals find comfort in acceptance of each other’s irregularities and focus on love (whether natural or unnatural in this instance), Perfume Genius doesn’t attempt to cast judgement on these encounters or connections; perhaps because he’s involved within them himself, or perhaps because it’s not anyone’s place to enforce their moral codes onto others?
These confusingly ambivalent viewpoints are elaborated upon as the album continues. The standout track ‘Mr. Peterson’ contains the crushing line “He let me smoke weed in his truck, if I could convince him I loved him enough”, weaving a tidy lyrical narrative over more upbeat piano backing, a sing-song for a child who is just becoming aware of his sexual power, and a requiem for a depressed paedophile in abuse of his charge unable to temper his uncontrollable urges.
These intimate, seedy, voyeuristic postcards intensify the confusion into ‘Gay Angels’, a song which hollows its way into your ribcage and feasts on your very humanity. By the end of the song, the music falls away into a sea of reverb tears, while a lone voice whispers “Shhh... It’s ok”. At first, this seems like a comfort, an outside narrator suggesting that we will get over this, but after repeated listens this appears to be a device, a trick, and the speaker is either the attacker or victim himself. Viewed in this light, it is either a self repeated comfort; a coping mechanism, or an attempt by the abuser to placate hysterics. The emotional confusion of such a line is a deeply unsettling morbid truth: that such ambivalence exists in the world with regards to love, and that the shift in meaning of those words can exist at the same time, to create two such opposing feelings simultaneously.
The optimist in me prays that the ‘Gay Angels’ form a metaphor for the liberating identity that Michael has found and that he may have forged a clear sense of self, moving into the future as a liberated, adult, sexual being. However, the following song ‘You Won’t B Here’ carries with it a new wave of self doubt and confusion that offers little solstice.
These piano confessionals hark back to The What Of Whom era Daniel Johnston, as intimate portraits of a confused person finding their way through a troubled world, but before any form of self-consciousness or cynicism entered his world. And perhaps, unlike Daniel’s ‘Peek A Boo’ recited into a lone boombox, it could be put to Perfume Genius that there is a level of self abuse in these recordings, a self conscious, exploitative proclamation that dwells on hardships, as opposed to seeking any sense of recovery.
This question of authenticity, does it have any value? Or is it just another negative judgement of something hard to understand? Regardless of this issue, the Badalamenti influenced dreamscapes of tracks such as ‘No Problem’, perfectly represented by its video of a beautiful girl, flirting with an underwater camera as she runs out of air evoking that sense of hopeless panic, and sheer beauty, deserve full attention.
If, even after Antony’s runaway success with I Am A Bird Now, Perfume Genius’ debut is too complex, too confusing, to be absorbed into the mainstream, we should celebrate it as a masterpiece of modern song-writing, dealing with subjects that most people would hope never to encounter with the complexity that they deserve, to create a visceral and compelling tract.
Artists in this article: Perfume Genius
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