Perfume Genius' Mike Hadreas participated in a series of modern dance performances before making this album, which helped him connect the body and the mind. Set My Heart on Fire Immediately opens with an inhale, instantly reminding you that a physical human body is responsible for the music you're about to hear.
Set My Heart on Fire Immediately by Perfume Genius With all of the album's whimsicality, it may be her most personal music to date. Her Southern drawl commands attention, highlighting the versatility of her flows. She spends just over an hour oscillating between the predatory nature of entertainment culture and living her life in earnest. At 25 tracks, it's a loaded project, but nothing feels extraneous. On her first official album, BbyMutha opts for bravado in the face of doubt and skepticism. "Take a trip to Muthaland," BbyMutha raps over an energetic trap beat in "Cocaine Catwalk." You have to surrender to the suggestion Muthaland is the ultimate vacation destination, a getaway into BbyMutha's life and rich interiority as she waxes poetic about sex, regretful baby daddies, gatekeeping Black culture and music, surveillance, crushing expectations from fans and the joys of raising her children. Sawayama never reduces these subjects - depression, navigating her Japanese and British identity, intergenerational trauma - to a digestible pop formula, instead detonating each one into songs whose strength lies in keeping every nerve ending bare. "Bad Friend" explores the particular devastation of feeling like a failure in friendship through the memory of a night out in Tokyo. "XS" is a hyper-packaged metacommentary on capitalist excess bubbling with anxiety on the long-term devastation of extraction in art and consumerism. "STFU!" channels its righteous nu-metal rage against the racism Sawayama has experienced in her life and career, with exquisite payoff. On its most bombastic and quiet tracks alike, SAWAYAMA never falters in its emotional specificity. Her debut full-length album, SAWAYAMA, is an air-locked vessel of glossy Y2K pop and nu-metal drama, matching the weight of unresolved emotions with spot-on, glittering production at each emotional cue. Rina Sawayama makes pristine pop about messy feelings. Or listen on the streaming platform of your choice.
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