Perfume said ‘SURPRISE BITCH. NEW SONG DROPPING NEXT WEEK.’

My, how the times have changed. Do you remember the days when news would break that Perfume would be releasing a song and the release date would be three months away?

Not anymore.

Ever since the debut of “Mawaru Kagami” at Perfume Live [Polygon Wave], Perfume have been like ‘Fuck it’ with the debuting and releasing of these new songs, and I find it cool. It makes sense with how music moves these days. And the pandemic of 2020 forced everybody to not only pivot, but stay on their toes and move things around. In addition to making sure you have something ready to go whenever. Perfume seem to still be in that mode. Not just with their music, but even their gigs. Code of Perfume seemed to be something which came together very quickly, which probably explains why the merch for the London show was so damn ugly.

HENNYWAY.

Perfume will be releasing a digital single “The Light” on May 24. I imagine that part of why Perfume are releasing the song out of the blue, at this moment in time and so soon after announcing it, is that they plan to perform it on their Code of Perfume Asia Tour which kicks off on June 8 in Hong Kong, and they wanted to give fans a chance to familiarise themselves with it in advance. And if this is the case, then I do think springing a new song on fans at the gig would have been a cooler move, and I say this as somebody who was at the Code of Perfume gig in London where Perfume debuted “Love Cloud”.

But this is all just me speculating. But Perfume really do seem to be about just performing and putting songs out, which shows how much they actually like the shit Nakata has been giving them lately.

“The Light” has already gotten its first airplay on FM802 and you can listen to a snippet of it below.

🔊 Listen to the full version of “The Light” @ prfm-multiverse

“The Light” sounds like a cross between “Edge” and “Cosmic Explorer”. I didn’t expect to get a song from Perfume with this vibe, but it does make sense given the streak of material they’ve released since “Time Warp”, and it fits nicely with it all.

I’m looking forward to seeing a live performance of this, as it’s a very different vibe and tempo from Perfume’s usual. It’s a shame Perfume don’t sing live, because a song like this would work just fine with Perfume just stood with microphones on a stand. Although Perfume not singing live doesn’t stop them performing “Jenny wa Gokigen Naname”, “Macaroni” and “Star Train” in this fashion.

Chances are that we are going to get a single announcement in a few months time—maybe even sooner—and that it will be a physical release which features “The Light” as a B-side. Team Perfume member Yusuke Tanaka, who has directed a whole bunch of Perfume’s music videos and TV commercials is responsible for the creative direction of the single cover art. The deco font choice is a very specific one. And whilst there’s no word on “The Light” getting a music video, it would be cool if it got a 60s themed music video to match the cover art.