Perfume announce their eighth and ninth studio album, Nebula Romance

Nebula Romance Part 1 will feature 10 songs, making it one of Perfume’s shortest albums. And one of those 10 songs will probably be an intro. Nebula Romance Part 1 will features the previously release songs “Love Cloud”, “Sumikko Disco”, “The Light” and a song “IMA IMA IMA” which is the theme for Perfume’s Disco-Graphy exhibit. Strangely, “Moon” will not be featured. Maybe it’ll be on Part 2, which would be very intriguing, because that’d mean that there is clearly some consideration being taken into the tracklisting. A far cry from the days of Cosmic Explorer.

Ever since the release of “Polygon Wave”, Perfume’s team have been playing around with the way they release songs and debut them. They performed a brand new song during their Perfume Live: Polygon Wave show, to the complete silent surprise of fans in attendance. And during their Code of Perfume gig in London, they said ‘Fuck it’ (not actually, but imagine!?) and performed a brand new, previously unheard song.

I’m not sure what’s been happening at Triangle towers since 2020, but I find it fascinating. Yasutaka Nakata producing good music again. Perfume throwing caution to the wind. We’re in new territory.

There seems to be a flexibility and spontaneity with the way Perfume release and debut stuff these days, which is really cool, very of the time and absolutely nothing like the good ol’ days of the Heisei era. Gone are the days when we would get a new song in a TV commercial, with no info on when or if it will be a single, to then getting an announcement two months later that the song from that TV commercial is releasing as a B-side to another single which is releasing in seven months time.

And then there is Nakata, the sole man behind all of Perfume’s music, who has gotta be missing root touch up appointments to get all of this music for Perfume done. And in-between working on the singles and the albums, he’s having to produce music for their tours too. Oh, yeah. Perfume will be doing a tour for Nebula Romance, titled Nebula Romance Episode 1, which kicks off in December 2024 and runs through until April 2025. So we’re likely going to be getting a new single from Nebula Romance Part 2, whilst the tour for Part 1 is happening.

This timeline is so crazy. But it’s fun and it’s different. And it’s also bold and a bit unexpected. A very welcomed thing from a group who has been around for two decades, seemed to hit a real slump circa 2017 and didn’t seem the type to take real swings.

Nakata must also be in a really good creative space to be cranking out so much material, and for Perfume to be actively responding to it, by wanting to release it quickly or debut it at shows. Perfume are in a position where they can do what they like. But it’s not like their sales are bulletproof and their tactics can’t end up hurting them, which is what makes their choices even more fascinating. It’s really bold, and is a reminder that throughout their career, Perfume have always been made some pretty bold choices—such as wearing really ugly dresses on stage and the Cosmic Explorer album cover.

Perfume | Amuse

Nebula Romance Part 1 releases physically on 30 October, but it will release digitally AN ENTIRE MONTH PRIOR on September 20. The only reason I can imagine that Perfume are doing this, is to allow fans to get as acquainted with the new material as possible ahead of when the album tour kicks off in December—the same way they released “The Light” before kicking off the Code of Perfume 2025 Asia Tour, where it was a part of the setlist.

It’s going to be interesting to see what the first week sales for Nebula Romance Part 1 are when it releases physically. Perfume’s album sales are in a decline anyway. And they’ve not really pushed any of their singles massively since “Polygon Wave”. So perhaps they don’t care. At this point I think it’s mainly fans buying Perfume’s music and not a great deal of the general public. So fans will absolutely stream the album and then buy it a month later when the physical release drops, with some buying both the regular and limited editions.

Touring is where the money is at anyway, and Perfume stay touring and selling tickets. Perfume’s singles these days feel like a case of their management team telling them ‘We gotta release a single for this tie-in we just booked’ and Kashiyuka sighing and responding ‘Fine’ as she throws her Miu Miu purse over her shoulder. Perfume seem like they’d be content with just debuting songs at shows and then being like ‘Here’s the album’. And I actually think using their shows to debut songs is a great idea and something they should keep doing. Because why not debut a song to a crowd of fans? And given the timeline of Nebula Romance Part 1 and the accompanying tour, there’s a high likelihood that April 2025 dates of the Nebula Romance Episode 1 tour will have a setlist which includes a song from Nebula Romance Part 2.

I’ve liked all of the singles Perfume have release post Plasma. And it’s easy to hear how they’d sit together on album. But Part 2 is what is really intriguing me. Because it had to have been, or will be produced as an album. Although based on interviews Perfume have done over the past couple of years, Nakata is just cranking out songs and nobody is really thinking about what will or won’t be a single. So perhaps Part 1 was produced as an album or a set of songs too. You’d think this was the case given that the title conveys that Nebula Romance is some form of concept album or at least an album with a theme.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how this all pans out. My only gripe at this point is the album title. Nebula on its own woulda been just fine. It sounds more Perfumey and feels like a fitting album title as a follow up to an album titled Plasma. But deep down, I think it’s that Nebula Romance just feels a little too similar to Cosmic Explorer. Let us put our physical copies of LEVEL3 within a circle of LED candles and pray that Nebula Romance is NOTHING like Cosmic Explorer.

📰 New original album “Nebula Romance Part 1” to be released! @ Perfume’s official website

📰 Perfume 10th Tour ZOZ5 “Nebula Romance” Episode 1 to be held! @ Perfume’s official website

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