POOR THINGS Composer Jerskin Fendrix Sets, Shares Lead Single 'Beth's Farm'

London-based artist & composer Jerskin Fendrix has announced Once Upon A Time. . . In Shropshire, his highly anticipated sophomore album, due out October 10th via untitled (recs) (Lauren Auder, deathcrash).

Lead single “Beth’s Farm” opens the album with a disorientating collage of vocal samples before building to a warm string section. Once Upon A Time. . . In Shropshire acts as a love letter to something that once existed - a shining, rose-tinted childhood and the lives that made it. It posits that grief is complex and memory is intoxicating - and that Shropshire can contain the entire world. Listen to the new single below.

His 2020 debut Winterreise placed him among a rising group of artists in the South London scene, and captured the imagination of director Yorgos Lanthimos, who tapped Jerskin to score Poor Things. The experimental artist was quickly catapulted to international acclaim, with the score receiving BAFTA, Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, and Jerskin winning an Ivor Novello award, and Film Composer of the Year and Discovery of the Year awards at the 2024 World Soundtrack Awards.

In-between time spent nurturing his burgeoning career as a composer (working on Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness & forthcoming Bugonia), Jerskin began work on Once Upon A Time. . . In Shropshire. The record threads together memories of a vibrant, rural childhood, attempting to capture a time and place that’s been altered by the ebb of time and the failings of memory. 

"I wrote this album during a period of sudden and unrelated deaths. A friend, family members, animals, and eventually my father,” he shares. “My album about Shropshire is a twofold testament. looking back on the world where I grew up, its beauty and innocence and wonder - then watching it become corrupted, death by death, until the entire dream was shattered.”

Photo credit: Tim Gutt