Inside No. 9, Season 4, Episode #47: Basta Now (Double episode)
Obviously this episode is dedicated to the wonderful Fanny Chiarello and all her work putting together the holy grail of music that is Basta Now. This book is a catalogue of women, trans and non-binary people in experimental music. And by goodness, there is a rich seam to be explored.
Not that long ago I realised I had an unconscious, or let’s be honest, a conscious bias towards music created by men. I was born in the early 1980s. I grew up in a household that loved music and we listened to records, cds and the radio every day. My dad’s influences came via The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the Easy Rider Soundtrack. My mother loved George Michael, pop music and musicals.
As a kid with little pocket money, I found my way to experimental music through a fellow library goer who ordered in the likes of Jim O’Rourke, Autechre, Stars of the Lid and Stockhausen into my local library. This was a time where I could rent 10 CDs for £1 a pop (pre Napster/Spotify). I later discovered the works of Xenakis, Luc Ferrari, Pierre Henry and Paul de Marinis myself through Caiman recommendations and reading what I could in magazines like The Wire and music blogs.
There was a point about ten years later that I realised the extent of the male dominance of my listening. I remember bringing this up with friends and was met with “If it’s good you would have found it”. I disagree completely as over the last decade I have found so many records that I missed, both due to my own bias and to what was lauded through the music press and the male dominated blogs I was reading. Looking back at my sources for new music I can definitely see that the issue lay as much with me as what I was consuming as content. I was listening to a lot of female artists in the pop and indie circles, such as Björk, Kate Bush, Janet Jackson and Missy Elliot; but nothing in the noisier, more experimental arenas.
It’s hard to pinpoint the original date but when I discovered Eliane Radigue, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Annea Lockwood and Yoko Ono (I mean it was drilled in to hate her by all my family, friends and most music journalists). I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard such incredible music. Quick caveat. None of the aforementioned are on this mix as they appear on previous shows.
Female musicians in popular music are incredible but often categorised as ‘pop’, ‘singers’, or ‘impersonators/lessers’ to their male counterparts (see Coltrane, Jackson, Sharrock et al). This is the language of DJs and music journalists, as well as our own male bias as mass consumers of music. Artists like Bjork, Kate Bush, Joanna Newson, Joni Mitchell, Alice Coltrane, Nina Simone et al seem to begrudgingly hold esteem but are always compared to the men that they work with but live in the realm of ‘accepted’ artists. This is why Basta Now is so important. It shares a world of music that most will miss.
Listening to the 18 glorious works on this mix I find myself bamboozled by the idea of hiding gender. There is such a rich continuity that runs through these pieces that not only transcends traditionalist ideas, but also opens the mind to the relationship between the creator and listener. That is not to demean the singular experiential stories that female, male and transgender artists feel independently, but it does highlight the need for a greater tapestry of sound interpretations. This is all here for us to hear and I’m so happy that more and more voices are now apparent in all scenes.
Through listening to more experimental music by women I have also discovered more music from queer and trans artists. Before I go on I will add that queer and trans artists have always been part of my life as long back as I can remember and before such terms were commonly used. I found such joy seeing my daughter growing up in a world where sexual preference, gender identity and appearance wasn’t really a big deal. As I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s homophobia was rife and racism was inherent and expected, almost as a right to passage. As we exit 2025 I see many of these old ideals resurfacing with a wanton zeal. This scares me and fills my heart with dread. As we see history moving in snakelike forms to quench the thirst of power and demean the weak, working class, artists and vulnerable we are entering the anthropocene of tech evil and algorithmic division.
I’d also like to make a big shout out to my aunt Lucy Clark, who is the first transgender woman to referee in football. She now manages Sutton United’s (my home team) Women’s first team. As hard as it is performing in music as a trans woman you have to hold your hands up for a woman in sport. We’re all so proud to be her family. Art and sport aren’t so far apart. She is a herald of acceptance and inclusion.
I am not innocent in this as I spent much of my youth embracing some of these restricting and misogynist ideas. There were many times I felt uncomfortable but I was also empowered by the notion of male superiority. I used this in a way that I once saw as a road to gain confidence as a man who didn’t quite know his sexuality and felt nauseous in the traditional gender roles. This doesn’t make me a forward thinking feminist, if anything it panders to my male insecurities and makes me more dismissive of my fellow humans as people who were less of a threat but more of a target. Not quite a misanthropist but a troubled vessel of constant conflicting questions from a lifetime of rapid change, normalised inappropriate behaviours and antiquated ideals.
I think this is what was done so incredibly well in the recent Netflix show Adolescence. I grew up with benevolent Christian values and witnessed a world that dismissed these for greed, centre-right, aggressive and male power. I used some of these elements to promote my own worth and hurt women in the process.This was an effort to distract from my own insecurities in the most cowardly manner. I still have to constantly question my motives and challenge the ideals that have influenced my upbringing. There has been much love and empathy, but also a world of judgement, hate and ridicule. I hope I have now become someone less influenced by these ideals and more open to being a better person.
One of the reasons so many men and traditionalists reach for hate over empathy is because every thought that was shaped as one grew up has to be questioned. I hate (only as someone wanting an easy life) and support this. Even now the old “automatic voices” fill my conscious thoughts with antiquated morals and caustic ideals. It hurts to redress the natural thoughts that one has accumulated over the years. I feel it’s the ability to confront this that is lacking in many modern men, and women. I do find this challenge exciting and empowering but it’s also exhausting. I wish more people had the confidence to talk about this and address the fact that even as left-wing thinkers, we still hold baggage that is difficult to shift. I use both genders in discussing this as the acknowledgement of our transgender friends is key to unlocking a basic human right of being accepted and supported.
Life should be a challenge. Many of us no longer have to fight for food and shelter, we now have to fight for a philosophical understanding of what it means to be ‘good’. This is why philosophy is so important. Questioning every thought I used to have is a challenge, but that’s what happens with progress. I hate feeling guilty about past actions and opinions but that’s better than perpetuating misogyny and ignorance. I pay for the bad things I have done through thinking about them every day. But if I question them and act accordingly, going forward, the only person I’ll hurt is myself. Surely that’s better than hurting someone else.
We are the change. Basta Now. But start now and move forward while remembering the past as a guide to where things have gone wrong and when they were right. Things have moved so quickly that I can see a time when things were better in recent years.
I’m listening to 18 women in the same way I’d listen to 18 men. Some of the stories are different and some are the same. The experience is glorious so why create constructs that block creativity from a specific person? So today I look and listen for sound and the wonder of creative performance. I don’t ignore the creator but I feel the platform that they create from. To question ones’ opinions is to be alive, to submit to prejudice is to be detritus. I carry the weight of my peers and the hope of a better outcome. If you want to truly connect with the future, listen, challenge, endure, hope and celebrate. I’d also suggest we all collaborate, share and talk. It’s through human interaction and sharing experiences that give us common ground and allows for a united kinship. Reading Basta Now wasn’t simply an introduction to new music, it was a gateway for engaging with art in a more fully rounded and human way. I think Fanny Chiarello should be lauded as a laureate for this work and I thank her for giving me such a joyous trove of wonders.
And There is Us
Valentina Magaletti
Lucha Libra
2024
DL on Permanent Draft
Bottle with Coiling Dragon Inside
Asha Sheshadri
No Longer a Soundtrack
2020
CD on Anòmia
Capriccio for Velasca
Brunhild Ferrari
Errant Ear
2025
CD on Persistence of Sound
What Happened II (1993)
Laetitia Sonami
Dangerous Women (Early Works 1985-2005)
2025
CD on Lovely Music
Dawn
Nour Mobarak
Father Fugure
2019
DL on Recital
For they do not know
Matana Roberts
Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden…
2023
DL on Constellation
Ocigam Trazom
Christina Kubisch
Mono Fluido
2011
CD on Important Records
Do You Be?
Meredith Monk
Key
1995 (r.1971)
CD on Lovely Music
Low-flying Clouds
Marja Ahti and Manja Ristic
Transference
2025
CD on Erstwhile Records
Dolls
Wanda Coleman
High Priestess of Word
1990
CD on Ne Alliance Record
Lucid Morto
Pan Daijing
Lack
2017
LP om Pan
After Sun (8 June 2023)
Lisa Ullén
Heirloom
2024
DL on Fönstret
Hours
Susu Laroche
Susu Laroche / Flora Yin Wong – Doyenne 001
2023
Tape on Doyenne
Ozymandias
Ipek Gorgun
Earthbound
2025
CD on Touch
The Size of Our Desires
Puce Mary
The Drought
2018
DL on Pan
Xantippe’s Rebuke
Mary Jane Leach
Woodwind Multiples
2023
LP on Modern Love
Lovers/World
Ruth White
7 Trumps from the Tarot Cards
1969
LP on Limelight
New Moon
Lyra Pramuk
Fountain
2020
LP on Bedroom Community
Inside No. 9 is an attempt to share unique narratives through the mixing of 9 songs. Every episode will showcase a new theme, opening up new tributaries of discovery. Inside No. 9 is presented by Peter Taylor, a former features writer for Foxy Digitalis from back in the late 2000s. Peter is a visual artist and musician and has been creating music as MAbH since 2008.
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