As Perfume Genius, Mike Hadreas explores areas where few artists dare to tread. His twisted piano ballads are little quakes, trembling with fear, while summoning fire from the earth's centre. Unflinching and disruptive, Hadreas addresses what it is to be a feminine gay man in a homophobic world, along with subjects such as domestic abuse and body dysmorphia. In contrast with the horrors that litter his lyrics, his compositional tone is grave but beautiful, and since the release of his 2010 debut Learning, the spectral darkness in his music has filled out with vivid synth colour.