Mistletone

Mistletone proudly presents the return of Perfume Genius with special guests, Hand Habits.

PERFUME GENIUS TOUR DATES:

Thursday June 9, Friday June 10 – Melbourne Recital Centre with Hand Habits.  Tickets on sale now.
Saturday June 11 – Vivid Sydney @ Carriageworks with Hand Habits.  Tickets here.
Wednesday June 15 – Princess Theatre, Brisbane with Hand Habits. Presented by Jet Black Cat Music. tickets on sale now.
Friday June 17 – Dark Mofo, Hobart. Perfume Genius only; tickets on sale now.
Saturday June 18 – Dark Mofo, Hobart. Hand Habits only; tickets on sale now.

The bold and tender artistic practice of Perfume Genius embodies fragility and empowerment, love and sexuality, trauma and triumph, with emotional honesty and rock-star swagger. Mike Hadreas and his band bring the electrifying Perfume Genius live show to Australia for the first time since 2018, sharing songs from Set My Heart on Fire Immediately along with his beloved previous four albums. Opening for Perfume Genius will be Hand Habits, aka Los Angeles musician Meg Duffy, performing songs from their brilliant art-pop album Fun House (Milk! Records) with a full band for the first time in Australia.

As author Ocean Vuong wrote in his liner notes for  Set My Heart on Fire Immediately:
“Can disruption be beautiful? Can it, through new ways of embodying joy and power, become a way of thinking and living in a world burning at the edges? Hearing Perfume Genius, one realizes that the answer is not only yes—but that it arrived years ago, when Mike Hadreas, at age 26, decided to take his life and art in to his own hands, his own mouth. In doing so, he recast what we understand as music into a weather of feeling and thinking, one where the body (queer, healing, troubled, wounded, possible and gorgeous) sings itself into its future. When listening to Perfume Genius, a powerful joy courses through me because I know the context of its arrival—the costs are right there in the lyrics, in the velvet and smoky bass and synth that verge on synesthesia, the scores at times a violet and tender heat in the ear. That the songs are made resonant through the body’s triumph is a truth this album makes palpable. As a queer artist, this truth nourishes me, inspires me anew. This is music to both fight and make love to. To be shattered and whole with. If sound is, after all, a negotiation/disruption of time, then in the soft storm of Set My Heart On Fire, the future is here. Because it was always here. Welcome home.​”

Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas grew up in Seattle and started his music career in 2008. He released his debut album Learning in 2010 via long-time label home Matador, and it instantly caught the attention of critics. “The songs on Hadreas’ full-length debut are eviscerating and naked,” said Pitchfork, “with heartbreaking sentiments and bruised characterizations delivered in a voice that ranges from an ethereal croon to a slightly cracked warble.” These descriptors became the hallmarks of Perfume Genius — Hadreas’ unique ability to convey emotional vulnerability not only lyrically, but with his impressively nuanced vocals.

His following album, Put Your Back N 2 It was released in 2012 and continued to build both his audience and critical acclaim. 2014’s Too Bright exhibited a massive leap forward in both production and confidence. Co-produced by Adrian Utley of Portishead, the album featured the stand-out single, “Queen.” The track quickly became a queer anthem and a powerful statement of being. Hadreas performed the song on Late Night with David Letterman.

In 2017, Perfume Genius released the GRAMMY-nominated No Shape, an album that would crystalize his fanbase world-wide and bring mainstream awareness to his art. The record was produced by Blake Mills (Fiona Apple, Alabama Shakes). “If you listen to the four Perfume Genius albums in chronological order, you can hear Hadreas healing himself in real time, moving toward an emancipation that seems, suddenly, to have come to pass,” said The New Yorker. “The center of his music has always been a defiant delicacy — a ragged, affirmative understanding of despair. ‘No Shape’ finds him unexpectedly victorious, his body exalted.” Over the course of the campaign he appeared on multiple late-night television shows and graced the cover of The Fader.

Perfume Genius’ music has played a central role in a number of films and television including The Goldfinch, The Society, 13 Reasons Why, Booksmart and Eighth Grade. He has collaborated with artists including Christine And The Queens, Sharon Van Etten, Weyes Blood, Cate Le Bon, Anna Calvi, King Princess and more. Hadreas has also collaborated with brands like Prada and W Hotels on special projects. His albums have been nominated for a GRAMMY Award and a GLAAD Media Award and have topped numerous decade-end lists including Billboard’s, Pitchfork’s, Crack’s, Paste’s and more.

Produced by Blake Mills, his fifth studio album, 2020’s Set My Heart on Fire Immediately sees Perfume Genius explore themes of queerness, with homages to 80s pop, classic rock, synth-pop, funk, shoegaze and many other genres. 

‘If you listen to the four Perfume Genius albums in chronological order, you can hear Hadreas healing himself in real time, moving toward an emancipation that seems, suddenly, to have come to pass… The centre of his music has always been a defiant delicacy- a ragged, affirmative understanding of despair’ – The New Yorker