by Mike Hadreas
First published 2020
Mike Hadreas, the artist behind Perfume Genius, reveals the creative machinery that built his acclaimed album Set My Heart on Fire Immediately. This limited edition book maps the journey from initial spark to finished song. French photographer Camille Vivier contributes striking portraits of Hadreas. The pages mix corroded collage work with pristine still life photography. Handwritten lyrics appear as physical artifacts. The book documents exercises in world building that generated the album's cinematic scope and intimate human focus. Readers see how vivid mental images transformed into musical compositions. Ocean Vuong provides the foreword, describing the music as something to fight and make love to. The book preserves fleeting creative moments as permanent objects. It shows how Hadreas constructs his dust blown musical landscapes and examines the tactile remnants left behind by his artistic process.
Genres: art, non-fiction, biography-memoir, music, 21st-century, photography
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: creative-journey, intimate-portrait
80 pages · Paperback · Hat & Beard Press