I wanted to propose something that, in a hypothetical reading group, could open up a discussion of female experimental music. For me this isn’t a tangential question but really the first area that introduced me to an important range of female artists and collaborations between women, an area which made the question of positive female-led and female-only activities seem of very tangible importance. In particular, this arose out of my involvement with underground experimental music and is inspired by certain artists, like Karen Constance, who made a big impression on me. It’s not something which is much written about yet, and indeed women are much better represented in underground experimental music circles than elsewhere (as artists, if not always in the audience), but an implicit feminist agenda is clearly there in many female-led and female-only projects.
I would ask a couple of questions to instigate a discussion – what do we gain from collaborating with other women? Why are female-only projects valuable? What impact do they make in shaping people’s opinion of women’s music, for better or worse? And why is the audience for experimental music predominantly male? (Isn’t it?)
Her Noise (Electra with Emma Hedditch, 2007)
Video documenting the development of the 2005 exhibition.
Watch it here.
This raises some of the questions I mentioned – the curators seemed to struggle with justifying a female-only exhibition, for example. Also, it did happen a few years ago now, at what seems in retrospect to have been a high water mark in mainstream interest in these experimental fringes, so why not revisit those questions and see what’s changed?
Karen Constance
Blood Relatives: Karen Constance interviewed by Keith Moline
WIRE 277, March 2007
Available here.
This is about Karen’s recently-defunct project Polly Shang Kuan Band, which had a shifting line-up of female collaborators over 10 years. I find it interesting also because there’s an awkward moment where the interviewer tries to characterise the band as “gestural…primal…outsider”, arguing that their use of electronics, for example, isn’t central to their sound, which doesn’t go down too well.
Nina Power
Woman Machines: the Future of Female Noise
From Mattin & Anthony Iles (eds.), Noise and Capitalism
Donostia-San Sebastián (Gipuzkoa): Arteleku Audiolab (Kritika series)
Can be downloaded as a PDF here. The book is distributed through trades.
(If you are an artist, musician, writer or engage in any creative activity, Iles & Mattin request that you send a sample of your work as a form of exchange for the book. Otherwise you can write a critical response to the book and send it to Arteleku. Any material sent to Arteleku will become part of Arteleku’s library and people will have free access to this material.)
AUDIO
Some music by female experimentalists:
Polly Shang Kuan Band;
Smack Music 7 (The solo project of Karen Constance from Polly Shang Kuan Band.)
Hockeyfrilla
Sharon Gal
Bad Orb
Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides (a duo featuring Kelly Jayne-Jones, who plays in a variety of collaborations.)
Hunter Gracchus (a collective based around Sheffield’s Singing Knives label, featuring Fiona Marshall, who plays with Kelly as the duo Slow Jejeur.)
Hertta Lussu Assa
Kuupuu
Lau Nau
Islaja
Pod Blotz
Heather Leigh Murray
Scorces
U.S. Girls
