About this item

“The definition of a hidden gem” – John Peel
“The world seems finally to be catching up to Leslie Winer, whose startling intelligence and singular vision shine through her copious recording life.” – Max Richter

“When I Hit You - You’ll Feel It” is a 16-track anthology that celebrates the extraordinary work of musician, poet, and author, Leslie Winer. Spanning Winer’s three-decade-long musical career: from her groundbreaking solo work in the early ‘90s to her latest inspired projects and featuring musical contributions from Jon Hassell, Helen Terry, Jah Wobble, Renegade Soundwave’s Karl Bonnie, and others; the collection also spotlights Winer’s diverse collaborations, and unearths previously-unreleased recordings.

Includes previously unreleased tracks, inspired collaborations, and material from Leslie’s groundbreaking 1990 solo debut, “Witch”.
Newly remastered by the GRAMMY®-nominated engineer John Baldwin & includes a 24-page booklet featuring a new interview with Leslie and liner notes by acclaimed author, critic and compilation co-producer Wyndham Wallace, along with an essay by award-winning writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei.
Cover collage by renowned British artist Linder and design by designer Christopher Shannon.

Musician, poet, iconoclast, model, artist, enigma. Leslie Winer is many things.

Born to a teenage mother and sold for $10,000 in a black market adoption when she was just hours old, Winer has always lived an uncommon life. She grew up in Boston with a voracious appetite for music and the written word and embraced the city’s lively jazz and folk scene in the ‘70s. Moving to New York for art school, she gravitated towards a vibrant crowd of intellectuals, artists, and radical thinkers—or perhaps they gravitated towards her.
There, Winer formed an unlikely friendship with writer and artist William S. Burroughs and lived on-and-off with Jean-Michel Basquiat. In London, where Winer began her musical ventures in earnest, she was a regular at Leigh Bowery’s underground club Taboo, where she met many of her collaborators, including filmmaker John Maybury, Kevin Mooney (of Adam and the Ants), and Boy George, who once declared that Winer “might just be the coolest woman on the planet!”

Winer’s striking looks also attracted fashion designers and photographers. Throughout the early ‘80s, she was an in-demand model—appearing in campaigns for Valentino, Christian Dior, and Yohji Yamamoto, and serving as a muse for a young Jean-Paul Gaultier, who later dubbed Winer “the first androgynous model.” She posed for Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, and Pierre et Gilles, and graced the covers of The Face, French and Italian editions of Vogue, and Mademoiselle.

TRACK LISTING

1. When I Was Walt Whitman - Leslie Winer
2. N1 Ear - Leslie Winer
3. Tree - Leslie Winer
4. Personals - Jon Hassell And Bluescreen Featuring Leslie
5. Dream 1 - Leslie Winer
6. Dunderhead - Purity Supreme
7. The Boy Who Used 2 Whistle - Leslie Winer
8. Hold On Postcards - Leslie Winer
9. He Was - Leslie Winer
10. RoundUp Ready - Leslie Winer
11. Skin - Leslie Winer
12. Box - Leslie Winer
13. This Blank Action - Diamond Version Featuring Leslie Winer
14. Battle Porn - Leslie Winer
15. Woodshedded - Leslie Winer & Jay Glass Dubs
16. Fragment #2 - Leslie Winer & Mari G. Mooney