Freda D’Souza announces debut EP Windowledge – out 28th June 2023
Photo credit: Daniel Glenn Padgett
demo records and Crossness Records are proud to present Windowledge, the debut EP by Freda D’Souza, to be released 28th June 2023.
Pre-order Windowledge EP on Bandcamp
Watch the video for ‘Windowledge’ here
Performed, recorded and mixed at home by Freda and mastered by Jake Reynolds, Windowledge explores the trials of intimate relationships (both friendship and romantic love) and the value of introspection and forging space for reflection. These five songs reveal a moment of clarity in the aftermath of a co-dependent relationship, opening a point of access into memory and the subconscious of their writer.
In Freda’s words: “Although I have been writing since 15, it took me a while to gather songs and record them in a way that I liked. I always ended up in these studios with older men and I would feel so tense and end up with a recording I was completely unhappy with. As well as this, I never felt any need to record my songs as I could listen to them in my head at any time - the songs already existed to me as living entities. Since 2020, I have been exploring the ways I could use demo recording to capture a space that would add to the song, as well as capturing a time span.”
The first part of that time span, and the first song to be shared is the eponymous ‘Windowledge’, available now on Bandcamp and beyond. Written at age 19, the song sees its writer on the precipice of both a new phase of life and an incipient, all-consuming relationship. Anxiety and intensity underlie a sensual wash of strings and layered vocals, while a home recording of rainfall bookends the melody like the run-in and out of a well-loved record - a memory carved into the grooves.
‘Julian’, the EP’s opener, holds the listener within a hair’s breadth, treading an enigmatic line between mournful dirge and secret love confession. Also something of an ambiguous love song, the T.S. Eliot-inspired ‘The Love Song of J. Alfreda D’Souza’ is a breathtaking seven minute odyssey through Freda’s emotional world, shot through with flashes of her playful sense of humour. The first verse almost has the feel of a manifesto: “If songwriting is not for navel-gazing, then what is? I don’t want to feel ashamed all the time; let music be a haven for me.”
Drawing from classic and contemporary folk and experimental reference points (as much Vashti Bunyan and Joni Mitchell as Aldous Harding and Jenny Hval), Windowledge is a spacious and shimmering introduction to a singular emerging talent. In a collaboration between two one-woman labels, demo records and Crossness Records, the EP will be released on limited edition cassette tape, as well as all download and streaming services, on 28th June 2023.
Upcoming tour dates:
13th June - Grand Junction, London (supporting Mount Eerie) - sold out
2nd July - Green Note, London (EP launch) - tickets
7th July - Platform, Glasgow (with L.T. Leif and Housekind) - tickets
9th July - The Engine Room, North Shields - tickets
30th August - Grow, Hackney
Further dates to be announced
Freda D’Souza
Bandcamp / Instagram / Facebook
demo records
Crossness Records
