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By Magali Rossi LCL | ­ LibreCommeLair

Everything is positive in Netaudio, artists are mostly generous and talented. They bring back creation at the centre, in its rightful place. Exchanges between artists are easy, healthy and free from negative interfering influences. The relationship between the artist and the audience is not based on self-interest, with the auditor playing its own role in the creative process: he can interact with the artist and even become an artist himself. Netaudio does not dedicate itself only to professionals or to the amateurs.

I see Netaudio as a peaceful environment with its own rules, an environment where people make progress together. The protagonists of Netaudio offer an alternative vision, some sort of ‘preserved open space’; where people come from a variety of backgrounds. They are open-minded, friendly, fair, avant-garde and above all competent. These qualities are significant, more importantly they are substantial.

I could keep on talking about the good sides of Netaudio and about our pride to be a part of this movement, but that is not the point I am trying to make here.

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When we returned from our trip to Berlin for the Netaudio Fair, just a year ago, we were bursting with exactly the same positive mind that I touch upon in my opening. We had such a good time and enjoyed the great line-up. When we came back home, it was almost like we were over-motivated, full of energy, confident, although my abuse of the German beer but I also came away with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth as I questioned my experiences.

WHERE IS THE SECOND SEX?

IS THE MUSIC WORLD BECOMING MONO GENDER[1]?

This was not just an impression, it all started with two ‘incidents’, an anecdote and an encounter, both taking place on the same day. Was it a coincidence? Or maybe it was a sign…

First, I was invited to take part in an interview, simply because I was the only girl who happened to be around. Well, I can’t see anything wrong with that, but then this form of positive discrimination started to make me wonder.

We then met Vinilette aka Elisabeth Pibernat, co-organizer of Femelek festival, DJ, producer, activist and feminist. She introduced herself first as a female and then as a DJ. Curiously, she was very shy about her music productions; she had no releases through a label… until we suggested joining our own label. Her EP was released in December 2009, and later one of Vinilette’s tracks was selected for the Catalan arts compilation, which was distributed at Sonar festival in June. Being involved with a female artist in the “classic music circuit[2]” with our ‘weird’ Creative Commons licence fills us with pride, but let’s come back to our point.

The festival, which Elisabeth co-organizes every year in Barcelona is a good example of its approach: Femelek line-up consists of 100% female talent operating within electronic music. Due to this lack of visibility and in order to gain some space in front of the opposite gender, women set up ‘private’ meetings where they are able to appear in the foreground.

ARE WOMEN AS NOT CAPABLE AS MEN?

ARE THEY NOT AS CREATIVE, TALENTED OR CHARISMATIC?

Is there a fundamental difference between male and female artists, like a genetic divergence that could impact on the creative process?

Of course not. Hopefully, I guess that women just have to fight as much to be recognized in music as in any other area of society. Centuries of patriarchal formatting of the mind cannot just be erased with only good intentions – and what about Netaudio?

How many (net)labels can claim a noticeable presence of female artists in their catalogue? On this black and white picture, unfortunately my own label is no exception to this rule surrounded by a large majority of men with only 3 out of 32 artists being women, therefore just about 10%.

With LibreCommeLair, we are deciding to turn towards a more women centred creation. We know for sure that equality is strictly impossible and we are not looking for total gender parity, which would just be pointless. We do not believe that positive discrimination can change minds, but we would like to bring our own contribution to this edifice. Without being pretentious I would like to start with looking at fair(sex) artists in a genuine way, but this simple plan of action is a real pilgrimage. With their special groups, corresponding circuits and networks, lady artist get to be part of a kind of protected and quite impenetrable parallel world.

WHO IS TALKING ABOUT SEGREGATION? GHETTOISATION?

Is there a female musician operating in this opposite gender world? Can anybody answer me?

—

I’m dreaming of an increasing number of women in the Netaudio sphere, this is where the progress could take place, as our involvement in this movement comes from a similar form of evolution, in addition to all those making Netaudio a friendly and healthy community. Netaudio is now a strong network, which has revolutionised the way we contemplate music in a space monopolized by major music companies, where independent artists from every country are able to claim a tiny but defined ‘zone’ to emerge in. I am totally convinced that the two sexes could naturally coexist in this ‘zone’.

Netaudio is a new form for creation and transmission, an alternative to a closed and sick system. It could also become a space for fairsex musicians to exist, somehow curing the evil, by which part of the music industry is still affected.

Maybe there is no solution to my questions about this wide-ranging topic, but I hope it might possibly set the Netaudio community off on this valid debate. As this is an open brainstorming space, I don’t see any better place to discuss it. Do you?

More than ever this could be one of Netaudio’s great causes: setting up a common space for Female and Male artists.

Special thanks to Sara, Sandrine (my copyeditors and examiners) Antina, Elisabeth and all the women who make the angles go round!

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[1] I shall limit my text to a vulgar confusion between ‘gender’ and ‘sex’.

[2] I mean the traditional music sphere based on CD selling.

Fairsex in Netaudio von Magali Rossi steht unter einer Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Lizenz.