Cool Stuff: Get Your Weird Poor Things Dance On With The Vinyl Soundtrack From Waxwork Records
Yorgos Lanthimos's latest feature, "Poor Things," (read our review here) is one of the most buzzed-about films of 2023. With Emma Stone fresh off a Golden Globe win for Best Actress in a Comedy and the film itself taking home the statue for Best Picture — Musical or Comedy, there's a high probability that "Poor Things" will be taking home some hardware at the Academy Awards as well. Much has already been said about the downright brilliant performances by Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, and the rest of the supporting cast, as well as the gorgeous costume and production design that will be giving Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" a run for her pink money.
"Poor Things" is a triumph across the board, and one aspect of the film that deserves much more praise is the original score from multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Jerskin Fendrix. Lanthimos' first collaboration with a composer and Fendrix's first score for a motion picture bore musical fruit boasting plucky strings against stunning legato flourishes, notes bending without warning, breathy vocal intrusions, and off-kilter tempos interrupting fluid movements. The "Poor Things" score is the pitch-perfect sound to accompany Bella Baxter's journey of self-discovery and liberation and now, the score can be yours!
In partnership with Milan Records, the vinyl wizards at Waxwork Records are releasing the score on a gorgeous 180-gram colored vinyl with a package design by Vasilis Marmatakis and heavyweight gatefold packaging, and more. Note: This soundtrack is available for pre-order and is expected to ship sometime in March 2024, so give Future You the gift of one of the best scores of last year.
Childlike sounds with mature themes
As Fendrix told Waxwork, "I wanted to have a lot of instruments that involved air and mechanics to match this kind of bizarre bionic thing going on." He explained this was behind his decision to incorporate a lot of woodwinds because he really likes "instruments that breathe for themselves — which seems apt for the biomechanics of the film — so pipe organs, uilleann pipes (which are like Irish bagpipes), a lot of synthesized breath and voice stuff." This helped build a textural sound to the score and became the perfect audio companion to Bella's increasing awareness of the world around her.
Fendrix began working on the score with only Lanthimos' script and conversations with the director to go by, an even more impressive feat considering just how amazing the overall sound came to be. He told Waxwork that he was "struck by how childlike all of the characters were." While Bella is the most obvious, "They're all in their own ways very immature and very naive, and it's very, very endearing," Fendrix explained. "For that reason I didn't want the music to be too grand or mature or poised. I wanted that real volatility and childishness to reflect the characters." Anyone who has seen the film or listened to the score online can attest that the musician more than achieved his goal. And now, with this score added to cinephiles' growing record collections, we can all have dance parties in our living rooms where we let the music flow through our bodies in whatever way feels right.
You can pre-order at Waxwork Records by visiting their website here.