Perfume Genius

Perfume Genius, a.k.a. Mike Hadreas, makes ghostly, spare music filled with ambient whirs, all driven by his frail croon. Hadreas is a fragile creature, but a beautiful one, and there’s no better example of this than on his 2012 release Put Your Back N 2 It, which features lush arrangements and orchestral flourishes that deliver the album’s most dramatic and beautiful moments. Early this year, he released a video for “Hood” with gay porn star Arpad Miklos, which finds the frail and typically shy Hadreas goofily clinging to the clothes-less actor while performing an otherwise serious love song, creating quite the juxtaposition. The video was briefly banned by YouTube because disrobed porn stars aren’t family friendly, but it has since been reposted in the restricted section.

Updated 04/05/2012