As Perfume Genius, Mike Hadreas has evolved from a contemplative singer-songwriter to an avant-garde visionary, pushing the boundaries of post-pop one delicate abstraction at a time. Originally created as a soundtrack for a modern dance performance with choreographer Kate Wallich in 2019, his sixth album, Ugly Season, the artist takes the focus away from his angelic voice, instead favouring loose and experimental song structures that swell operatically across swirling instrumental arrangements. These tracks oscillate in the space between binaries, mutating freely across the album from delicate piano solos to grandiose organ solos, reggae pulses and a nine-minute psychedelic ambient epic. The lyrics, too, are impressionist, often drifting into distorted sonics that seem worlds away from the direct confessionals that mark his earlier works.
Elsewhere, Machine Girl releases an epic game OST, Sound of Ceres team up with Marina Abramović on an interstellar album, and Yaya Bey’s record is a vivid contemplation of heartache and joy.
