Perfume Genius shares "Natural High" from upcoming music and dance performance, The Lesson

The Lesson, created with Alan Wyffels and Tate Justus, will be the pair's second collaboration, following 2019's The Sun Still Burns Here. Inspired by Elfriede Jelinek's novel The Piano Teacher, the project was commissioned by Seattle Theatre Group, combining Perfume Genius’ — the alias of musician and composer Mike Hadreas — experimental pop with Wallich’s choreography. "Natural High" is Perfume Genius' first new music since the release of his 2025 album Glory. The six-minute track was co-produced with Pascal Stevenson (Fashion Club), merging keyboard melodies with house rave-driven energy. “I’ve always thought of my albums as soundtracks to films that do not exist,” Hadreas says. 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 per...