Perfume Genius, At A Turning Point

Mike Hadreas (aka Perfume Genius) opens his latest album, Set My Heart On Fire, Immediately, with a jarring statement: “Half of my whole life is gone.” The lyric, sung in typical heartbreaking Perfume Genius fashion — as if a feather is floating between falling and bursting into flames — sets the melodic-sullen tone of the artist’s new record. 

But it also sets an intriguing point of demarcation for the artist. What now, one wonders, will Perfume Genius do with the rest of his life at this raw halfway point? The answer has something to do with forgiveness. 

“I had a choice after I wrote that line,” Hadreas says. “I just started singing and that line came out and it’s like, OK, where do you go after that?”