A couple of months after announcing a fall 2021 tour with Tame Impala and Death Cab For Cutie, Perfume Genius (aka Mike Hadreas) has shared a haunting cover of Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic “I Will Survive.”
“I recorded this at home for a commercial pitch, but they didn’t give me the money,” Hadreas wrote in his newsletter, where he shared the track. “I suppose the cover is a little deathbed-y, I was very serious that day, but I like how it turned out. In particular the last moment … I might stretch that in to something new. I dug around online for a while, looking for video to pair it with, and ended up with an old bowflex commercial and forest fire footage that I spliced together. Happy to share it with you.”
Perfume Genius’ most recent studio album, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, came out last year. This past spring, he unveiled a remix compilation, Immediately Remixes, featuring contributions from artists like Actress, Jenny Hval, and, Danny L. Harle.
“The whole record, I was imagining performing it live,” he told Uproxx last year about Set My Heart on Fire Immediately. “It’s about being outside and it’s about connection; it’s about the people, and all the ideas that are formulating around performance, and how I was going to get the music to people beyond just releasing it. It’s hard. That’s how musicians sustain themselves really, touring is how you make money. I’m sure there’s a way for me to perform here, inside. Some people are more natural at pointing the camera at themselves in their house and going. And I can still do that. But I just had different ideas for what it was going to be.”
Listen to Perfume Genius’ cover of “I Will Survive Above.”
Immediately Remixes is now via Matador. Get it here.