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VERSED is a monthly podcast illuminating the heart and soul of music. Featuring in-depth interviews with songwriters and composers, plus tips and insights to help you navigate your music career. Brought to you by ASCAP, home of the world's greatest music creators.

“Bugonia” is the ancient practice of leaving out the body of a dead cow, with the belief that bees would spontaneously generate from its carcass. That strange idea serves as an inspiration for the film Bugonia, the latest from visionary director Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, The Favourite, The Lobster). And in an abstract way it also inspired its score by British composer Jerskin Fendrix – the first original composer that Lanthimos ever worked with, and his collaborator on Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness.

Fendrix didn’t read the script or see any footage before he began writing music for Bugonia. Instead, Lanthimos gave him just three words: “bees,” “basement” and “spaceship.” The bare bones of the film’s metaphorical carcass, out of which Fendrix generated his score.

What resulted is a grandiose, oftentimes unhinged score that tracks the film’s complex emotional terrain. It was recorded by the 90-piece London Contemporary Orchestra, which Jerskin praised for their adventurousness. “They're up for playing around, they're up for experimenting, they're up for embarrassing themselves musically,” he says. “So being able to play with an orchestra…which I was able to draw some more unusual, more provocative sounds out of, was an absolute joy.”

The same month that Bugonia was released in theaters, Fendrix released Once Upon a Time…in Shropshire, his first solo album in five years. It’s a fascinating yin to Bugonia’s yang, representing a very different side of this multi-faceted creator.

EP. 46 FEATURED INTERVIEWEE: JERSKIN FENDRIX

Jerskin Fendrix was raised in the rural county of Shropshire, England, where he learnt violin and piano. In his early twenties, Fendrix moved to London and spent two years nurturing a visceral live personality at the iconic South London venue Windmill Brixton. In 2018 he composed the music for an experimental opera Ubu, performed at the V&A Museum. The Guardian called the score “brutal" and “unsettling.”

He released his debut-album Winterreise in April 2020 via untitled (recs). An “unhinged collection of pop songs,” Loud & Quiet Magazine named it their 2020 Album of the Year. In 2023, he scored the motion picture Poor Things directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. It was the first time the director of The Favourite and The Lobster had worked with an original composer. The score was critically acclaimed and received a range of “Best Original Score” nominations from the Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, as well as an Ivor Novello Award. The pair collaborated again on 2024 feature film Kinds of Kindness, and Bugonia.

Jerskin Fendrix’s sophomore record Once Upon a Time… in Shropshire came out October 10, 2025.

Follow Jerskin Fendrix on Instagram

Bugonia is in theaters and on select streaming platforms. More info here.

Listen to Jerskin Fendrix’s discography on Spotify.

Stream Once Upon a Time…in Shropshire on Bandcamp.