Leslie Winer

Leslie Winer emerged in the early '80s as a high-profile fashion model before she fully indulged her ardor for making music. After she made a series of collaborative connections later in the '80s, the poet and musician offered her full-length debut with Witch, a showcase for her detached yet penetrating observations and knack for combining dub, dancehall, and hip-hop. Although some of its tracks were played as early as 1990 by well-known radio DJs such as John Peel and Chris Douridas, the album wasn't granted a proper commercial release until three years later. Its slow-motion genre collisions, rich with heady atmospheres and low end, were nonetheless identified by outlets such as NME as a formative trip-hop recording. Winer's output before and since then has been credited to an assortment of pseudonyms and released in either limited or inconspicuous fashion. The 2021 anthology When I Hit You -- You'll Feel It has provided her output with its highest platform yet.

The Boston-born Winer developed an interest in poetry and music at an early age -- she started playing piano as a child -- and in her late teens moved to New York City to attend the School for Visual Arts. In New York, she struck up a friendship with <a href="spotify:artist:3CcqTY5fsD6Bli5ecGhDKz">William S. Burroughs</a> (whom she had contacted to visit her literature class) and became known as a model through associations with Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, and <a href="spotify:artist:5ZvJkSLul0yTz6TyIoqNeC">Jean Paul Gaultier</a>, among others. By the mid-'80s, Winer was gravitating back to music, acquiring high-tech gear and linking with Kevin Mooney (<a href="spotify:artist:2DppeCnNtvrLfEobq9Pw5r">Adam and the Ants</a>, Wide Boy Awake). Winer and Mooney formed Max, an act that debuted with "Little Ghosts," a single issued in 1987, the same year the duo collaborated with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Chrysalis%22">Chrysalis</a> labelmate <a href="spotify:artist:4sD9znwiVFx9cgRPZ42aQ1">Sinéad O'Connor</a> on "Don't Call Me Joe," off The Lion and the Cobra.

Winer subsequently worked with Mooney and Karl Bonnie (<a href="spotify:artist:34wtf7GZVapHNvysEvuFzY">Renegade Soundwave</a>), along with the likes of <a href="spotify:artist:5jhqwsWfRaETrWPWI0Rc7u">Jah Wobble</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:2B9vG6UTWeSaACKLFQTeAD">Helen Terry</a>, on the album Witch, originally credited to ©. White label copies pressed in 1990 received strong support from BBC DJ John Peel and KCRW's Chris Douridas, and a 12" single derived from the sessions was commercially available in 1991, but it wasn't until 1993 that Witch was officially issued by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Rhythm+King%22">Rhythm King</a> sublabel <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Transglobal%22">Transglobal</a>. Between the creation and proper release of Witch, Winer was also featured on material by <a href="spotify:artist:4yr28XHlxD78C3diMbOsTs">Holger Hiller</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:0ow8F3xGkmZWVulTtaiFQo">Book of Love</a>. Later in the decade, she appeared on albums by <a href="spotify:artist:5kNZV33crEsk2IMZMJ8bOQ">Jon Hassell</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1G3Eh23f2hwhEnAMw7HsZ6">Bomb the Bass</a>, and recorded her second album, Spider, which in 1999 was available only from Helmut Lang.

Winer's public musical activity in the 2000s was limited to a collaboration with <a href="spotify:artist:4B9dGfGFvmCa3TZ5MIxs9X">Mekon</a>. Her output increased the following decade, whether it was in association with <a href="spotify:artist:4B9dGfGFvmCa3TZ5MIxs9X">Mekon</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1Uss5lIRTz73DGdleyKYXB">Diamond Version</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4FXcAaU5uNDSlh1ySswoki">Christopher Chaplin</a>, or <a href="spotify:artist:2Uo8hdDlnsj9baLt1jPiVu">Jay Glass Dubs</a>, in tandem with either Christophe Van Huffel or <a href="spotify:artist:1gGIN9oDjwg7cTzBOCUGcx">CM von Hausswolff</a>, or more obviously under her own name or initials. The 2010 download and cassette release & That Dead Horse gathered stray tracks Winer had uploaded to the Internet. In 2013, Winer liberated a shelved project for major-label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Geffen%22">Geffen</a>, 3 Bags Full, and reissued Spider, both as downloads. Four years later, she issued Huncke Readings, an audiovisual work in tribute to writer <a href="spotify:artist:1h2ZmOAIPsY5EfuwssRY6T">Herbert Huncke</a>. Earlier, the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Wormhole%22">Wormhole</a> label had anthologized Winer's recordings with &c, but that small-scale release was supplanted in 2021 by the multi-format and more widely distributed When I Hit You -- You'll Feel It, put together by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Light+in+the+Attic%22">Light in the Attic</a>. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi