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Why so few female Psy-artists?


Geostigma

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So yeah, Basically I'm curious to why there are no female psy-artist i'm known of, even though I've been listening to psytrance for years. I think a Female touch to a genre is important because they paint the musical picture with even more interesting sounds that could be implemented in a genre. A different perspective is neat for equilibrium I mean.

 

If you know of any, Please share! I'd be quite interested in that.

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The lack of women in psytrance isn't just a problem that this scene has, IMHO, it has to do with the social climate around electronic music in general. Psytrance artists came out of the techno and synthpop scenes, and those are super male dominated (there are exceptions, like Anne Dudley and Anne Clark). Also, a lot of artists started off as DJs, and record collecting has been a typically male pasttime. Musical and technical knowledge would be shared and passed down among groups of close friends, almost always guys, so you had that extra hurdle if you were female and wanted to learn how to DJ vinyl or worse, make electronic music, which was a LOT harder back in the days of analog hardware. In short, the more you're around other people who're into the same thing as you, the more involved you get in a scene.

 

Going further back, there's a tendency to think of musical performance as a form of courtship; the rocker or the DJ is the guy who gets the groupies/makes female bodies move on the floor. Western culture has these deep rooted notions of females as body-oriented and males as technically skilled and mind-oriented, and it's a belief that dogs us to this day.

 

My hero in this scene is Ree.K. Why? She makes music with no outside input, and if you compare what she makes to the music of her husband Masa, it's colder, more aggressive, and more introverted than his. It breaks all the stereotypes of what a female musician is supposed to sound like. She is the Riot Grrl of goa.

 

Someone else who innovated and pushed the scene forward is Sonya Bailey - one half of Manmademan, which was one of the best old school artists. And there have been a couple of all-female psy acts, though they're obscure: D.P.O.D. and B(if)tek.

 

I would personally like to see more girl geeks with a real passion for the music, and less would be pop singers... what encourages me is that it's a LOT less difficult to get involved in production now, so we'll see what happens!

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The lack of women in psytrance isn't just a problem that this scene has, IMHO, it has to do with the social climate around electronic music in general. Psytrance artists came out of the techno and synthpop scenes, and those are super male dominated (there are exceptions, like Anne Dudley and Anne Clark). Also, a lot of artists started off as DJs, and record collecting has been a typically male pasttime. Musical and technical knowledge would be shared and passed down among groups of close friends, almost always guys, so you had that extra hurdle if you were female and wanted to learn how to DJ vinyl or worse, make electronic music, which was a LOT harder back in the days of analog hardware. In short, the more you're around other people who're into the same thing as you, the more involved you get in a scene.

 

Going further back, there's a tendency to think of musical performance as a form of courtship; the rocker or the DJ is the guy who gets the groupies/makes female bodies move on the floor. Western culture has these deep rooted notions of females as body-oriented and males as technically skilled and mind-oriented, and it's a belief that dogs us to this day.

 

My hero in this scene is Ree.K. Why? She makes music with no outside input, and if you compare what she makes to the music of her husband Masa, it's colder, more aggressive, and more introverted than his. It breaks all the stereotypes of what a female musician is supposed to sound like. She is the Riot Grrl of goa.

 

Someone else who innovated and pushed the scene forward is Sonya Bailey - one half of Manmademan, which was one of the best old school artists. And there have been a couple of all-female psy acts, though they're obscure: D.P.O.D. and B(if)tek.

 

I would personally like to see more girl geeks with a real passion for the music, and less would be pop singers... what encourages me is that it's a LOT less difficult to get involved in production now, so we'll see what happens!

 

seems pretty reasonable actually. I guess you're right about most of the stuff you wrote

 

Passion is key! And those without passion for the music, but merely egocentric and fame-whoring will reveal themselves anyway within a short period time.

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Guest E-Mantra

..also in group like manmademan..sirious isnees..i hope im not mistaken..

i think its the same problem in every electronic music ..or at least the extreme genre

i dont know many female artists doing minimal techno ..idm...breakcore ...etc

but you put it right...it's something to think on it

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Ree K. is really amazing, she is back and playing almost every weekend now in Japan. Some month ago girl of Talpa from Israel formed new projects called Silent Witch and Hidden Souls, music reminds a lot on Talpa for sure and i love it. Their is also woman in System 7 project called Miquette Giraudy.....

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There's also Ariel in X-Dream, though I honestly dislike her work a lot. Instead of taking X-Dream to a higher level, her vocal/lyrics/performance just made their last album to be renegated by Marcus and Jan's fans (me, included. I don't have the album, don't like it, can't dance to it) and she looks like an untalented transvestite on stage. Reminds also of Melicia, another female whose work is pure crap.

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Guest Euforix

The lack of women in psytrance isn't just a problem that this scene has, IMHO, it has to do with the social climate around electronic music in general.

 

I think there is more female DJ's in other EDM genres. For example in trance scene we have more & more female DJ's coming up.

 

But you're right there's still more men in the scene which is a pity. :S

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I think it could be extended to most or all electronic genres. Not counting DJ's, just producers. I think maybe a big factor is that creating music by MIDI sequencing is more technical and methodical than women are typically drawn to. Not to say they can't, but on average women are more drawn to interests with less rigid frameworks. In music you see a lot higher percentage of women who sing or play piano, violin, or some sort of immediately expressive instrument like that.

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There's also half of Analog Pussy. I'd say it's because producing psy requires technical knowledge like cutoffs, LFOs, peak controllers and whatnot which does not appeal to them. Too bad, I'm sure we're missing out on some good music =\

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There's PsyNina

 

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Psynina

 

 

Honestly, at first I was expecting cheesy Morning Trance, but this is more Twilight Psy, with banging percussion and solid production values. This girl definitely knows her technology. :)

 

I hope you know of the controversy regarding Psynina :P (or more specifically her gender)

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I hope you know of the controversy regarding Psynina :P (or more specifically her gender)

 

ummm... no. :P

 

If she really is "PsyNino", then we have to keep looking. :unsure:

 

This one exists, has all female parts and makes good music, not really Psytrance though:

Tonikom is a great female industrial/electronica artist:

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Hmm. Does darkpsy have the highest concentration of women of any psytrance subgenre? That would contradict your earlier theory if so, since it's probably the most "extreme" form of psytrance, in the sense of having the least in common with conventional house music variants.

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Hmm. Does darkpsy have the highest concentration of women of any psytrance subgenre? That would contradict your earlier theory if so, since it's probably the most "extreme" form of psytrance, in the sense of having the least in common with conventional house music variants.

 

Well what I tried to said before is that the amount of women that are interested in extreme kinds of music is way smaller that those of males.

From my personal experience about 25%-30% of the guys I know are extreme music fans (metal, hard EDM, etc.)

In girls is way smaller around 5-10%.

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