Alternative
Perfume Genius released «Natural High» today on Matador Records. It’s six minutes co-produced with Pascal Stevenson, of Fashion Club, opening on dark keyboard figures, moving through hazy synths and closing on a house-music lift. It’s Mike Hadreas’s first song since «Glory», his seventh record, released in 2025 and nominated for a Grammy.
The track is part of the score for «The Lesson», a full-evening music-and-dance piece made with choreographer Kate Wallich, commissioned by the Seattle Theatre Group. Its starting point is «The Piano Teacher», Elfriede Jelinek’s novel that Michael Haneke adapted for film. It premieres at LA’s REDCAT with three nights from 18 February, returning the 25th to 27th; in March it heads to New York, Paris and London.
«When we started looking for a framework for this new piece, we kept coming back to The Piano Teacher,» says Wallich. «We’re both drawn to the dynamic of good versus bad: how we’re supposed to behave and how we’re not, how to balance desire and restraint.»
It’s performed by Hadreas, Wallich, keyboardist and co-writer Alan Wyffels, and Tate Justus. It’s the second time Hadreas and Wallich have worked together: the first, «The Sun Still Burns Here» from 2019, led to the record «Ugly Season».
The label says more music is coming in 2027. Before that, on 27 and 28 October, Hadreas and Wyffels play as a duo at London’s Union Chapel; the 28th is listed as sold out.
Text by Marçal Bonastre