Perfume Genius: IMMEDIATELY Remixes

- Is tampering with a masterpiece something sacrilegious, tantamount to cultural vandalism? When Marcel Duchamp put a moustache on the Mona Lisa (well, not exactly literally) the response created both a new “masterpiece” and an ongoing discussion of whether a singular work of art is static or fluid and always evolving. Mike Hadreas aka Perfume Genius is a musician who is equally an artist –both sonically and visually– and 2020’s much acclaimed Set My Heart on Fire Immediately was lauded as his best work to date. Handing the thirteen songs on that release to thirteen different musicians/producers to remix as they saw fit must have been crazy/brave and a project that could have turned messy like so many other remix projects have done.

Hadreas is crazy/brave and throughout his career has combined poignant lyrics about his personal journey as a queer artist and confronting the unpleasantness of the world, with his almost fragile vocals clinging like a spider in a rainstorm to the gossamer web of synth and electronica effects that weave some of the most delicately beautiful pop songs of the previous decade. Hadreas has invited a stellar cast to undertake the remixes and rather than place them in some random order, IMMEDIATELY Remixes follows the same track listing as its genetic parent album. Curiously this hasn’t upset the sequence, which, no doubt, Hadreas and producer Blake Mills had carefully crafted for that album. It gives a sense of familiarity as you listen, but it's rather like hearing a distant echo in a dream – something you know, but different.

The collection commences with the breathy opening to Whole Life which at first doesn’t sound as if it has been remixed, and carries an almost Roy Orbison tone to Hadreas’s vocals and the carousel-like time signature. However, Jaakko Eino Kalevi turns up the beat just enough to make it kick on with a freshness that is – breathtaking. Charli XCX creative director A.G. Cook is next with Describe which strips back an already stripped back track, layers some dubstep breakbeat beats under the vocals and drops some tinkling notes, dripping like diamonds, across the top line.

The diversity of talent Hadreas has brought together is almost a guide to queer, genderfluid and non-binary artists making music this century. Planningtorock’s take on Jason is club-worthy in a smooth and seductive way and handles Hadreas’s high & breathy vocal line from the original dreamy ballad with consummate skill. The remix version heightens the story the lyrics tell of a boy who can’t come to terms with the passionate and erotic emotions he has for another. Norwegian class act Jenny Hval takes Leave apart completely and puts it back together in a form that is nearly unrecognisable from the already deconstructed track that featured on Set My Heart on Fire Immediately and even Hval has a bit to say about it, with a spoken piece toward the end directed to Hadreas (and the listener) chatting about her use of reverb effects in her early work as a musician and how she applied it to this track. It’s mesmerising and replete with layers of sonic playing that could keep the listener occupied for ages.

So many other tracks could be equally unpacked, however space precludes getting into that depth of analysis. Briefly, Danny L Harle (an associate of A.G. Cook’s PC Music label) takes Just a Touch and throws the full acid-club treatment at it, which pulses with energy; Nidia’s remix of Moonbend goes into all sorts of time signatures and ambient rhythms and One More Try is all tech-distorted jazz as if played in a late night club designed by Salvador Dali, though the remix has been handled by Darren J Cunningham better known by his producer pseudonym Actress.

The overall result is a triumph of creativity without being captive to the original material or carelessly diffident and is a perfect companion piece to one of the standout albums of 2020.

- Blair Martin.