Electro Feminisms: So Long and Thanks For All The Beats

So yes, as today is my last post and science fiction has been a bit of a subtheme here, it seems fitting to drop a Douglas Adams reference (I tried to think of a recognisable LeGuin but failed!). I’ve loved to doing this series, it’s been lovely showcasing some of the many wonderful female artists who’ve produced, played on, sung on, been sampled in, written about and djed electronic music in its many forms.

There’s so much more I meant to get to, things like: thinking about the singer/producer relationship more, the different ways Madonna and Bjork have been electronic as well as pop artists, what it’d mean to see a singer-as-a-kind-of-curator of musical trends, the Electrogals collective in Portland which puts on events and festivals and how-to workshops in hip-hop electronic music, and exploring the racial dynamics of genre categorisation. And I wanted to talk about Mrs Jynx’s album The Standoffish Cat, just because I love that record.

But sadly, there’s only so much material you can cram in to such a rich topic. For more, I heartily recommend following the Women in Electronic Music group on Facebook, which one kind reader posted in one of my earlier posts. I’d like to again recommend the Pink Noises collection by Tara Rodgers, it’s a good book packed with lots of ideas from women in the industry. But it’s not the end point, it’s just the beginning. This is the point where if I had magic powers I’d make you all Electro Slayers and give you the ability to program drum machines and dj beat match.

Emily In Love - Remember When by Emily In Love I’m going to leave you with some shameless showing off. The above song is one that I wrote the music for and produced the beats, and then co-wrote the lyrics with my friends Pia (main vocal) and Fiona (backing vocal) who make up our band Emily In Love. The three of us recorded the song in the Australian summer, laying out melody lines on a nearby piano and writing lyrics around a table as we drank beer. When I think about being a woman in electronic music, I remember not only the macho bullshit, but also the other women who taught me to dj, whose sets I’ve danced hard through, the women I’ve swapped records with, and the women I’ve shared the recording studio with - a process that’s not complete without the beer, cigarettes, cups of tea, and the camaraderie of making something new together.

Thanks to Bitch for having me and Kelsey in particular for being a great editor. And you, dear readers, thank you all for your comments and recommendations; I hope in turn I inspired you to check out some new artists yourself. I can as always be found editing and writing at Global Comment and blogging at Tiger Beatdown.

And that’s about it for me. Ta-rah! xx