Perfume Genius announces new stage collaboration, offers endorphin-laced new single “Natural High”

Musician and composer (and Perfume Genius architect) Mike Hadreas has once again collaborated with acclaimed choreographer Kate Wallich, creating an evening of music and dance based on Elfriede Jelinek’s novel The Piano Teacher which they’re calling The Lesson. Their previous audio-visual venture was 2019’s The Sun Still Burns Here and its associated album, Ugly Season. Commissioned by Seattle Theatre Group, their latest work together will premiere at REDCAT in Los Angeles starting on February 18 and will continue through April in select cities in the US and UK/Europe. 

“Mike and I learned during the last piece, that we are interested in the same kinds of tensions and contradictions in the work we make,” says Wallich. “When we started searching for a framework for this new piece, we kept coming back to The Piano Teacher. We are all drawn to the dynamics between what is good and what is bad…how we’re supposed to behave, and how we aren’t, how to balance desire and restraint. As we’ve gotten older and closer, and learned a lot of our own lessons along the way, it feels right to come back into a room together, ask new questions and create stakes together again.“

The score to The Lesson will feature new songs from Perfume Genius, including the recently released cinematic goth-synth opus, “Natural High,” which opens with sparse keyboard notes drifting around Hadreas’ fragile voice before slowly rising in intensity until waves of synths roll over you in an unbroken cycle of sonic tides. The track closes with a cosmic rave-up that could sounds as though it’s happening on a dancefloor populated by all manner of non-terrestrial beings.

“I’ve always thought of my albums as soundtracks to films that do not exist,” explains Hadreas. “There is a freedom to inhabiting something imagined and purely sonic. I can be every character or not exist at all or body swap at will. Scenes can shift immediately just because I feel like it. That doesn’t change when creating a performance with Kate, all the mystery and thrill of going somewhere lawless and dreamlike stays intact – but I’m not alone in building the world and it literally fleshes out in real time. Body swapping feels very different when you are actually in a room holding the other person.“

Listen to the song below.

 

Tour Dates:

February 6 – NORTH ADAMS, MA, USA – MASS MoCA (Work-in-Progress Showing) 
February 18- 20 & February 25-27 – LOS ANGELES, CA, USA – REDCAT (World Premiere) 
March 4 – 6 – NEW YORK, NY – Baryshnikov Arts Center
March 17 & 18 – PARIS, FRANCE – Philharmonie de Paris 
March 21 – LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – Barbican Centre 
March 24 – UTRECHT, NETHERLANDS – Birds of Paradise Festival 
March 27 – DUBLIN, IRELAND – National Concert Hall
April 1 – MINNEAPOLIS, MN, USA – Liquid Music / Northrop
April 9 – SEATTLE, WA, USA – The 5th Avenue Theatre

Ticket information can be found here.

Check out our review of Perfume Genius’ 2025 album, Glory, here.