Perfume Genius – Learning (Matador)

We love Daniel Johnston because he seems, even up to the present day, like an uncorrupted genius. Perfume Genius (a.k.a. singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas) is by most accounts corrupted to the core, so the fact that his debut album Learning has Johnston’s same air of musical innocence suggests either a remarkable new talent or an even more remarkable act of self-will. Simultaneous with the release of these ten songs, Hadreas’ life story started circulating, as if the two can’t be considered separately (a similar thing happened last year with the debut of Blue Roses, another deeply “personal” record). Before I’d heard his music, I knew about a life marked by personal tragedy, desperation, and acting out, followed by a retreat to his mother’s house to write, record, make sense, find peace.

But it’s odd to think of these songs as being written down on paper first, since their impact comes mostly from the manner of their recording. Only “Mr. Peterson,” the tale of a high school math teacher’s affair with a student and subsequent suicide, stands as a literary achievement as well as a musical one. Over the course of six astonishing couplets, the song becomes an act of grace via the power of unadorned narrative. Elsewhere, Hadreas’ words are either not so crisply narrative or else indecipherable, couched in simple chiming piano chords and Twin Peaks-style synth washes (those basic sounds in which the human soul resides). The beautiful lo-fi production is yet a third atmosphere for his voice. If Hadreas is indeed a beginning musician, it’s also true that he has innate musical sense. The reverb-y twinkling, echoing voices and whispers and other phenomena that punctuate the songs aren’t just accidental bits of stray noise, but precisely what give the music shape and human dimension. Everything on the album that suggests an amateur home recording is at the same time so perfectly conceived as to denote hours of meticulous labor. It helps to know that Hadreas recorded these songs in his mother’s basement. A lot has changed since Daniel Johnston was recording tapes in the early 80s, not knowing if there would be anyone to listen to them, but one can also imagine Hadreas hunched down in desperation, recording with a hushed voice so the sounds might not spill upstairs, not expecting any dividends for his work except his own peace of mind. That type of recording process makes these songs rich in mood and atmosphere, so you can understand their origin and import even when you can’t hear the words.

I hesitated before writing about Learning here. It’s an album perfectly designed to scare up the listener’s own personal demons (or at the very least ghostly childhood memories) and I was afraid I’d feel compelled to share my own. But this observation doesn’t have to be a stepping-stone to my memoirs, but can instead illuminate an important fact about Perfume Genius’ songs: they’re not glorified moments of navel-gazing, but gifts to the listener. You’ll learn less about Hadreas’ painful life story than you will about your own emotions and conjured memories while listening. When I listen to Daniel Johnston, it’s out of a yearning to understand him—I fret over his tales, worry about his sanity, hope that he finds happiness, all the while knowing that his demons will probably outlive him. I don’t worry so much about Perfume Genius. It sounds as if, in a mere 28 minutes (a good punk band too requires no more than that), he’s exorcised his demons, and they’ve left in their wake only a serene feeling of floating through the past. He’s done one thorough purging and discovered the joy of making music. The sing-song melody of “You Won’t B Here” (courtesy of Hadreas’ soft and meek voice, like an untrained Jon Auer) is almost cheery once you get past how sad the sentiment is.

Similarly, I spent a somber week (rainy weather, The Lost Weekend, Bergman’s Winter Light) falling under this album’s melancholy spell, and then found reason to rejoice. Melody, human emotion, a finely wrought story: all is right with the world.