Perfume Genius announces new album ‘Glory’
Perfume Genius has unveiled details of his upcoming seventh album, Glory. The record will be released on March 28th through Matador.
The American singer, real name Mike Hadreas, has teased his new album by sharing the LP’s lead single, ‘It’s a Mirror’. In a statement, Hadreas said of the personal track, “I wake up overwhelmed even when nothing is going on. I spend the rest of the day trying to regulate, which I prefer to do at home alone with my thoughts. But why? They are mostly bad. They also haven’t really changed for decades.”
Perfume Genius continued: “I wrote ‘It’s a Mirror’ while stuck in one of these isolating loops, seeing that something different and maybe even beautiful is out there but not quite knowing how to venture out. I have a lot more practice keeping the door closed.”
Hadreas also says the overarching theme of Glory is a conflicting struggle “between internal and external”. For this album, Hadreas worked closely with guitarists Meg Duffy and Greg Uhlmann, drummers Tim Carr and Jim Keltner, and bassist Pat Kelly, which he found to be a creatively rewarding process.
The singer said of working alongside the band: “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.”
In true Perfume Genius style, Glory reflects deeply on his own life as he continues to navigate through ever-changing circumstances. Themes of the record include growing older as a gay man, as Hadreas explains, “There’s a map for the first part. There’s books about hustlers and drinking and drugs and going out. And then, after that, there’s not a lot.”
To promote Glory, Perfume Genius is set to embark on an extensive North America tour, which starts in California next May at the Little Saint in Healdsburg on May 12th. The run of dates concludes on June 27th in Portland at the Revolution Hall.
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