Jerskin Fendrix - Winterreise

Released: 26/04/24

A couple of years ago I saw Jerskin Fendrix live at the London Contemporary Music Festival. I instantly felt sorry for the guy, as he played directly after Andy Ingamells, who was performing Nam June Park's infamousSonata Quasi Una Fantasia. For those not familiar with the piece, it's quite a simple concept: a pianist (in this case Ingamells) performs Beethoven'sMoonlight sonatawhile simultaneously taking off all of their clothes until they are completely naked (timing this to coincide with the end of the work); the performer then stands up, bows to the rapturously applauding audience, and oils off with as much dignity as they can muster. There's no way to follow that, really, but Fendrix put in a valiant effort. 

Anyway, as you may already figured out, Jerskin Fendrix is a pseudonym; Joscelin Dent-Pooley is his real name, which sounds like a character from PG Wodehouse'sJeevesstories, and even more made-up than Jerskin' “ which is a feat in itself given that Jerskin sounds like a 17th century term of abuse. Of course, none of this matters, as what's important is that the Shropshire-born avant-pop savant is a brilliant composer with serious classical music chops and a singular approach to production “ the result of which can be heard on his 2020 debut,Winterreise.Now re-pressed with its original artwork, on a limited run of only 1,000 copies (don't sleep on this, it will go fast), the head-meltingly great, genre-defyingWinterreiseis a bravura mix of baroque, pop, electro and punk “ so good, in fact, that on the strength of the record the director Yorgos Lanthimos asked Dent-Pooley to compose the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning filmPoor Things(for which he also received a nomination).