Jerskin Fendrix interview with Composer Magazine :

Jerskin has composed the soundtrack for Poor Things, the new and seventh film from acclaimed Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos. Bursting onto the film music landscape with the skill of a composing veteran and the experience of a genuine novice, Jerskin Fendrix has made the most audacious debut in recent cinema history.

The music had to be made in the context of something that was so visually astonishing and unusual.

How did that inform your approach to the music?

All of that material — the script, visual treatment, and the actual cut of the film — was a good indication that I needed the emotional core of the music to be something specific, and also to allow it to be very vulnerable. I tapped into this kind of cuteness and playfulness, as well as some of the horror. However, even cosmetically, like the textures and the orchestration, all of that had to be represented in the recording and production. It had to be done in the context of something that was so visually astonishing and unusual. There are only so many adjectives to describe how it looks, but there aren’t many other films that look like that. So that was enough. I spent a while contemplating how I wanted to get certain things across, and how I wanted to play with them.

Were there any references or conversations about your own music? Listening to your album Winterreise, there seem to be little flares or flourishes that hint at the DNA of the Poor Things music.

That’s inevitably going to happen, but we didn’t discuss any particular pieces that much. It was more like before I started doing this work, I wanted to understand what elements of what I was doing had appealed to him. I think what we generally agreed on, which in retrospect makes a lot more obvious sense, was the way we treat playfulness, and the way in which we treat humour.

We didn’t ever speak about any other films, or composers or film music — the score was built completely from the ground up.

We both liked that as a format; being able to play with subverting expectations, or using hyper-exaggerations and romanticising elements — but doing all of that in the service of actually very serious emotions. We wanted to explore how humour can be weaponised into something profound, which isn’t always touched upon. It kind of gives what you’re seeing a different meaning compared to if it was more ‘tastefully’ or ‘traditionally’ approached. We didn’t ever speak about any other films, or composers or film music — it was built completely from the ground up.

Words by Joe Williams