June Hawthorn kicked off the first show of this year's Music Waste with a bang — not by way of pounding bass or snappy drums, but with lyrical prowess calling on listeners to remember they hold power, and to make sure they use it.
Formerly known and loved by many in Vancouver's indie scene as SoyJoy, Juniper Lee's new project, June Hawthorn, is going country. Kind of.
Last month, they released breaker, the first album under their new title. With somewhat unconventional instrumentation — mandolin, fiddle and banjo take the lead — and dense lyrics, their new work begs for patience and an open mind. It takes a few listens for the gravity of Lee's message to set in, but once it does, it's hard not to appreciate how they weave a call for social change into everything that surrounds them; they long for camaraderie and solidarity, from the crows in treetops to the roots in soil.
For this show, Lee chose to go solo. Perched on a dining chair in the centre of the Red Gate stage, they looked more like a storyteller than a musician — like they should've had a cloth-bound book nestled in their lap in lieu of their acoustic guitar. Audience members reflected this understanding as well, crossing their legs and settling on the floor for the entire set.
After opening with a call for a free Palestine, Lee performed "what we're capable of," a track about the exhaustion of not seeing enough positive change come from activism, and how to overcome this feeling while also empowering the people around you to do the same. The song finds Lee sitting in the burning sun contemplating whether to give up their fight. Lee recalls how a friend told them, "No news is bad news this time" — and even as others pack their bags, Lee realizes they need to stay exactly where they are.
They then sang "held" and "say it again," the latter being the most notably alt-country of the set (Lee threw a "yeehaw" in its introduction for good measure). Lee's writing is polished, but their voice isn't. It's riddled with twang and cracks as they sing, but instead of detracting from the poetry it adds another dimension; the sense of grit and vulnerability that is the foundation of their stories of activism and reflections on sexuality, gender and growing up caught between cultures.
breaker was written during a few months spent in South Korea. Lee mentioned this trip was the first time they had visited their mother in almost five years and was a chance to reconnect after hitting a rough patch in their relationship. As their last song off breaker for this performance, they did a mashup of "the calligrapher I" and "the calligrapher II," which read like they were taken straight out of a fantasy novel, populated with time travellers and magicians.
The set wrapped up with SoyJoy classic "face value" — "I grow closer to my songs, but further away from you," Lee sang. It's a final reminder of the overwhelming sincerity and sense of openness in everything they create. June Hawthorn's lyrics show Lee's optimism about their capacity to bounce back from heartbreak and their assurance in the possibility of a better future, but they refuse to forget the suffering that precedes it. Unafraid to sit in the melancholy, they treat every story — good or bad — with care.