Something a bit different for this Monday. I had been saving this review and then someone sent me an article about Women in UK Hip Hop and it all came together.
As usual many thanks to Yeah I Know It Sucks for this review.

artist: The Femme-Mynistiques
title: Here She Comes… Live @ The Boom Room
keywords: hip-hop, rap, experimental, electronica, jungle,lyrical,spoken word,poetry,tribal house,vocals, Philadelphia
reviewer: Esther Langendorf

some info from The Femme-mynistiques bandcamp account:
In January 2011, at the behest of the Plum Dragoness (founder/hostess of Poet-tree-En-Motion), the three artists (Alexa Gold, Lady Omni Mc & Plum Dragoness) decided to collaborate, performing as The Femme-mynistiques and blending their respective skills in dance, music production, theater, poetry and song into an illuminating blend of musical performance celebrating the spirit of freedom, femininity and love.

Now in Augustus 2015 we are listening to this trio’s E.P. named ‘Here She Comes… Live @ The Boom Room’ a release consisting of four tracks recorded from a live performance that is of an excellent audio quality.
When hearing the first track named ‘she walks among us’ I can’t ignore that there is ‘music and vocal wise’ something very…

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Introducing, Playlist, Soundcloud

August 30, 2015 Feminatronic

Continuing with the theme of poetry in sound this weeks Soundcloud playlist includes tracks that use text, voice and electronics –

Sunday Mix

SUNDAY MIX – MEMORIES

August 30, 2015 Feminatronic

This month the Sunday Mix is based loosely on the idea of memories and the feeling that can occur of otherworldliness and a kind of a journey that you take, when a memory strikes.

The music reflects that feeling…

I remember
The crackle of the palm trees
Over the mooned white roofs of the town…
The shining town…
And the tender fumbling of the surf
On the sulphur-yellow beaches
As we sat…a little apart…in the close-pressing night.

The moon hung above us like a golden mango,
And the moist air clung to our faces,
Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child
And we watched the out-flung sea
Rolling to the purple edge of the world,
Yet ever back upon itself…
As we…

Inadequate night…
And mooned white memory
Of a tropic sea…
How softly it comes up
Like an ungathered lily.

A Memory – Lola Ridge (1873 – 1941)

And I gave myself to the poem.
And the poem gave to me.
And I gave myself to the sky.
And the sky gave to me.
And I gave myself to the wind.
And the wind took what I gave
and passed it to the sky.

And I gave myself to women.
And women gave to me.
And I gave myself to the wound.
And the wound gave to me.
And I gave myself to hope.
And hope took what I gave
and passed it to the wound.

And I gave myself to wine.
And wine gave to me.
And I gave myself to candlelight.
And candlelight gave to me.
And I gave myself to memory.
And memory took what I gave
and passed it to candlelight.

And I gave myself to music.
And music gave to me.
And I gave myself to the tree.
And the tree gave to me.
And I gave myself to change.
And change took what I gave
and passed it to the tree.

And I gave myself to silence.
And silence gave to me.
And I gave myself to light.
And light gave to me.
And I gave myself to night.
And night took what I gave
and passed it to the stars.

In Vino Veritas – Howard Altmann (2013)

But with the sentence: “Use your failures for paper.” Meaning, I understood, the backs of failed poems, but also my life. Whose far side I begin now to enter— A book imprinted without seeming season, each blank day bearing on its reverse, in random order, the mad-set type of another. December 12, 1960. April 4, 1981. 13th of August, 1974— Certain words bleed through to the unwritten pages. To call this memory offers no solace. “Even in sleep, the heavy millstones turning.” I do not know where the words come from, what the millstones, where the turning may lead. I, a woman forty-five, beginning to gray at the temples, putting pages of ruined paper into a basket, pulling them out again.

Waking the Morning Dreamless Long Sleep – Jane Hirshfield (1953)

Poetry courtesy of Academy of American Poets

Discovery, Introducing

TODAYS DISCOVERY – FELICIA ATKINSON

August 28, 2015 Feminatronic

Interviews, Reblog

INTERVIEW REBLOG – Step Right Up: La Nuit

August 28, 2015 Feminatronic

Have followed Felicia Atkinson for a while and recommend listening to her work. Have been listening to this collaboration and suggest checking out La Nuit too.
Article and Interview courtesy to Fractured Air.

FRACTURED AIR

Interview with Félicia Atkinson & Peter Broderick (La Nuit).

“The words appeared to me like this, I don’t know, I like to improvise lyrics, it’s like day dreaming, you dig in your own soul and see what you can fish there.”

— Félicia Atkinson

Words: Mark Carry, Photographs: Félicia Atkinson

The music of Félicia Atkinson and Peter Broderick both surfaced to my attention around the same space in time, during 2008. John Xela’s Type imprint served the most trusted sources for independent music discoveries and two composers from the label’s roster particularly forged an indelible imprint, namely Peter Broderick and Sylvain Chauveau. ‘Float’s utterly captivating neo-classical-based compositions served a gateway into Broderick’s soaring songbook – that soon would follow with the gifted Portland musician’s ‘Home’ and ‘4-TrackSongs’ full-lengths – and across the years, any project conceived by Broderick (or shares his involvement in any way)…

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Discovery, Introducing

TODAYS DISCOVERY – JANA WINDEREN

August 26, 2015 Feminatronic

Jana Winderen researches the hidden depths with the latest technology; her work reveals the complexity and strangeness of the unseen world beneath. The audio topography of the oceans and the depth of ice crevasses are brought to the surface.

Articles, Reblog

REBLOG ARTICLE – Within a Grain of Sand: Our Sonic Environment and Some of Its Shapers

August 26, 2015 Feminatronic

Just found this article on Sounding Out and it’s a great overview of how artists have combined sound and the environment via various means to create sonic art (in its’ widest sense). Simple questions are answered by the artists focussing on what is Soundscape. Very interesting piece.

Sounding Out!

“It devolves on us now to invent a subject we might call acoustic design, an interdiscipline in which musicians, acousticians, psychologists, sociologists, and others would study the world soundscape together in order to make intelligent recommendations for its improvement.”
–R. Murray Schafer
The Soundscape, Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World

With those words, and with that book, Canadian composer, writer, educator, and environmentalist R. Murray Schafer introduced the concept of the soundscape…a sound, or combination of sounds, that forms or arises from an immersive environment. What follows is an exploration of how several key field recordists define and explore the notion of soundscape.

1. What do you do?
I capture moments.
I explore environments & structures using conventional & extended field recording methods. I also use instruments & small objects. Sometimes I perform live intuitive compositions, sometimes I install work & often I compose photographic scores.
For…

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Introducing, SoundCloud Spotlight

SOUNDCLOUD SPOTLIGHT – ORPHAN FAIRYTALE

August 26, 2015 Feminatronic

Introducing, Reblog, Review

REVIEW REBLOG – In the Light of Air: ICE Performs Anna Thorvaldsdottír

August 25, 2015 Feminatronic

I’ve been saving this review from ACL for a little while and then Q2 posted the overview and whole piece to listen to here –
Anna Thorvaldsdottir Carves Isolated, Icy Paths With ‘In the Light of Air’
The two fit well together.
Thank you A Closer Listen for the Review.

a closer listen

Less than a month after Anna Thorvaldsdottír’s inclusion on Nordic Affect’s Clockworking, a new collection of her work has been issued. This four-movement work (plus a concluding piece) premiered only a year ago, and is performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble. At the 2014 Reykjavik Arts Festival, a series of breath-activated lights enhanced the experience, while many klakabönd (metallic ornaments known as a bind of ice) were used as percussion. Much of this is apparent in the clip below, but home listeners might imitate the experience through creative lighting and sound-and-motion activated appliances.

Not that any of this is necessary to enjoy the album, a combination of filigree-thin solos and remarkable convergences. Thorvaldsdottír honors both the contributions of the individual performers and their work as an ensemble. At this point, fifteen years and five hundred premieres into their career, ICE’s resume is so long that it causes the…

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Event

EVENT – Talk at YSP

August 24, 2015 Feminatronic

Magz Hall

Sound and radio artist Magz Hall has joined YSP for a residency over summer 2015. Magz’s exploration of the artistic potential of radio, outside of conventional settings, has seen her turn ceramic pots, books and now trees in the YSP grounds into radio transmitters. Powered by solar energy, the trees create their own micro FM station, broadcasting a radio wave translation of biological processes and reactions to the environment.

http://www.ysp.co.uk/exhibitions/magz-hall
Join Magz for a guided tour of the tree radios and a talk about her practice. Sat 29th August at 13:45.

http://www.ysp.co.uk/events/magz-hall-meet-the-artist