In this ‘Listed’ feature, we get to know the most radicalist up-and-coming stars through a themed list of their top musical picks.

This time we delve into the expectedly niche world of eccentric pop oddball Jerskin Fendrix with his carefully curated playlist of music dedicated to the historic city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

Gaining our undivided attention across a spat of shows at the lauded Brixton Windmill a year or two ago, Jerskin Fendrix is the magpie-like moniker of Cambridge graduate and lowkey musical mastermind Joscelin Dent-Pooley.

Known for his impassioned one-man performances, Fendrix set off on the road with fellow eclectic noise-makers black midi last year and has been praised by Black Country, New Road's Isaac Wood, who name-dropped him as hugely influential to his rambling solo project The Guest.

With the release of three striking video-accompanied singles in 2018, an unlikely Christmas tune with black midi titled 'Ice Cream' that was played by 6 Music's Steve Lamacq and an acclaimed soundtrack for an experimental theatre piece at the V&A all under his belt, Fendrix penned a deal with London's untitled (recs).

His highly-anticipated debut Winterreise will arrive in less than two weeks and with his pre-released singles 'Black Hair', 'A Star Is Born' and 'Oh God' inciting equal parts of bemusement and delight, we jumped at the opportunity to learn more about Fendrix' musical motivations.

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1. Love Letter Part 1 / Bruno Part 1 / Love Letter Part 2 - Robert Ashley



Ann Arbor’s musical DNA is spliced from the rich neighbouring city of Detroit, and the very good music department at University of Michigan (probably??), and nobody straddles this splice more impressively than hyper-underrated opera composer Robert Ashley.

When I was writing the score for my 2018 opera 'UBU', Ashley was the main guy I looked at. He uses American dialect beautifully, the scores sounding as if they’re spoken (he rightly points out that American vowels sung in the European operatic style sound dumb), which creates a natural empathy that most academic music can’t.

Here is the 'Love Letter' segment from one of his final operas, 'Celestial Excursions'. Here Ashley himself is singing, and it’s one of the rare instances of an old person singing that sounds like an old person singing. It is extremely beautiful.

2. The Pure And The Damned - Oneohtrix Point Never & Iggy Pop



I read somewhere that a young Iggy Pop had something to do with Robert Ashley’s early work - in any case Iggy Pop is probably the most iconic musician to come out of Ann Arbor. Also he featured me on his radio show last year, which is super nice!

This track from OPN’s score to 'Good Time' is a god damn punch to the crotch of a love song, and a bit of me likes to think that Iggy Pop puts a bit of Robert Ashley in there.

3. i would throw my vape in a cornfield for you - Flight Patterns



University of Michigan’s Sigma Phi 'Metal Frat' is currently grooming a whole generation of emo. This basement venue got some big old contemporary indie rock names like Dogleg banging around, but for slightly more musical & lyrical substance emo nerds Flight Patterns are the ones to look at.

Naming songs is a weird little avenue of contemplation - Flight Patterns tends to go for the Half Man Half Biscuit (National Shite Day, All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Shirt) style pretty good jokes for titles (Thank God For Brollinger, Crab with Knife), but this can go odd. I’ve always been a little turned off by how Of Montreal titles their songs because it seems (god forgive me) self congratulatory, plus I’ve always been against using words in any song or title that you wouldn’t use in conversation.

Anyway Flight Patterns is pretty good, I’d like to see some more stuff from them. Ness Lake is also a vibe, not a million miles from deathcrash, London’s very own emo band!

4. Ball N’ Chain (live at Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival) - Big Mama Thornton and the Hound Doggers



Woah shit! You never thought you’d see Alabama blues god Big Mama Thornton in a list of music v-a-v Ann Arbor Michigan?? Well this recording from the mercurial Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival god damn scorches. Wait for the guitar solo at the halfway mark and also make sure you packed like ten pairs of pants because you’re gonna shit all of them!!

5. The Conscious Club - Vulfpeck



A very tight group straight outta UoM, AA. 'The Conscious Club' joins the great list of bangers ('Nightcall' by Kavinsky, 'Chains' by Gatekeeper) that start with a stock sound effect, and also fries the aux while it’s at it.

6. Dither performs The Garden of Cyrus - Eve Beglarian



Academic composers tend to shy away from pop music elements, because when communicating in a common language it tends to show how weak their music actually is (see Anna Meredith). The electric guitar is one of these weirdly absent tropes - Morton Feldman had an okay crack, and Missy Mazzoli uses it well in the last bit of her very good opera 'Song from the Uproar'.

Here, UoM, AA composer Eve Beglarian piles on four and the result is pretty interesting, also interestingly reminiscent of incandescent musical villain James Martin’s piece, 'Die Quieter Please'.

7. Washboard Blues - Washboard Willie



Washboard Willie!!! One of the greats. Technically part of the more famous Detroit blues scene, but also was apparently a hit with the law students at UoM, and played regularly around Ann Street.

Washboard Willie is also one of my finds from the Wirz family’s monolothic archive of obscure American records: https://wirz.de/music/america.htm. Another Wirz gem is an inventory of every Harry Oster recording from Angola Prison, Louisiana, where you’re gonna get some old, old spirituals in their rawest format. Waste a solid month looking up every recording on that site.

8. mirror - Samiyam, Earl Sweatshirt



Not really that associated with Ann Arbor, but definitely born there - Samiyam is an interesting musician, but definitely of the calibre of Soundcloud Madvillain style producers that need something a little more substantial to cut through the chill. Earl Sweatshirt has generally proven himself to be the main person to do that.

You know, back in the pre-humous days of Silent Barn, Brooklyn, I actually accidentally saw MIKE at a gig where there were like maybe 20 people in the audience, and when I found out the Some Rap Songs era of Earl Sweatshirt was directly symbiotic with him and Standing On The Corner and that whole scene it made me feel nice inside, he was such a welcoming performer. There’s a song called 'SK2' which I won’t release for a while but definitely owes a lot to that universe.

9. A Letter From Home - “Blue” Gene Tyranny



Not an Ann Arbor native, but such a constant collaborator of Robert Ashley’s that he is welcome in this list anytime. He’s a very bizarre virtuoso pianist, with one of the best artist names in history.

'A Letter From Home' is one of the rare solo Tyranny recordings, and it is a lovely lovely environment to be in. The thing I like the most is how lame the actual letter is, talking about smoking weed and having “crazy ideas”, instead of it being this well constructed prose. It makes me think it might actually be a real letter. Something comforting to blast in these gruesome times.

10. Perfect Lives - Robert Ashley



You thought’d you’d only get one dose of Robert Ashley on a list of the music of Ann Arbor, Michigan? You’re dead wrong, fucker!!!!!

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Winterreise will arrive on the 17th of April via untitled (recs).

-Holly Mullineaux