A 16-track retrospective of the Boy George-approved musician, poet and author Leslie Winer will showcase her groundbreaking three-decade career.

Released by the Light In The Attic label, When I Hit You – You’ll Feel It spans Winer’s output from her solo work in the early 90s to her latest projects. Featuring contributions from Jon Hassell, Culture Club’s Helen Terry, Jah Wobble, Renegade Soundwave’s Karl Bonnie among others, the collection also spotlights Winer’s diverse collaborations and unearths previously-unreleased recordings.

“She might just be the coolest woman on the planet,” said Boy George of the US musician, writer and poet who was mentored by William S. Burroughs before moving to London in the mid-80s 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.

Winer’s striking looks also attracted fashion designers and photographers. Throughout the early 80s, she was an in-demand model and appeared in campaigns for Valentino, Christian Dior and Yohji Yamamoto as well as serving as a muse for a young Jean-Paul Gaultier, who later dubbed her “the first androgynous model.” Winer 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.

At the turn of the 90s, she would unknowingly help invent trip-hop. On her debut album, Witch, Winer blended early hip-hop samples with dancehall basslines and programmed beats, while weaving spoken-word vocals into her ambient tracks.

The collection will be available in multiple special 2xLP editions, on CD, and across digital platforms. The album includes a new and extensive interview with Winer by the compilation’s co-producer, Classic Pop’s Wyndham Wallace. Rounding out the package is an essay by the award-winning writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei and an original cover collage by the renowned British photographer and artist, Linder, featuring photography by Mondino, and design by Christopher Shannon.

For more details, visit https://lightintheattic.net/

Leslie Winer