FREDDIE JUNE
I sing to make a kind of sense of myself and my pain, the type of love I yearn for, the love I have and the love I've lost. I consider it my protective peace practice; a means of salvation. And when I do it, it's under the name, Freddie June. Freddie, simply because of my obsession for the name and others like it. June, because of my love for the line, "We Jazz June", from Gwendolyn Brooks' poem, We Real Cool.
Belly of the Wail
Conceived by Smith, composer Tariq Al-Sabir, and vocalist and artist Freddie June, the triadic composition functions as another text, a B-side to the exhibition’s forthcoming catalogue, that draws from principles of improvisation and looping to create capaciousness. Its three segments, “The Storm,” “The Belly,” and “The Reemergence,” consist of a freedom song written by Freddie June that is continuously stretched and reshaped. The score looks to the essence of wailing, shouting, screaming, inhaling and exhaling, “those things we do with the breath,” writes Smith, that make the unspeakable corporeal, that make life rather than noise. Playlists and recordings made by artists in the exhibition are embedded in risers, and a record player prepared for two listeners plays host to a collection of vinyl selected by Smith. Saturated in sound, the exhibition itself becomes an architecture in which noises bleed and stories are told. Listen here .
My first album, "I'LL BECOME THE STAR IN YOUR GLASS EYE".
A collection of sketches/musings from 2017-2020 . All written and recorded in my bedroom. Listen and download here.