FEMME N BASS

SorchaLula, aka Katie Martin, will be on Caffeine and Aspirin at 11:15am tomorrow, talking about her new tracks and playing at Femme n Bass tomorrow night! Tune in on 88.6FM or at www.radioactive.fm to have a whakarongo/listen ❤

📸 Fran Parker
[Katie is at an angle to the camera, looking at us with a smile. Her curly hair is loose around her face, she is in a printed white tee shirt, and she is framed against the soft pink of the wall behind her]

If you have any extra party treats planned for BASS: The Final Frontier this Saturday, have you been a responsible bean and already got them checked??

If you haven't, there are free, legal drug checking clinics every day between now and Saturday, including one in our very own Newtown Community Centre - Te Whare Hapori o Ngā Puna Waiora, Saturday afternoon 1pm - 4pm.

Check the calendar for the other dates here!

Drug checking clinics - The Level Find a drug checking clinic near you to find out if your stuff is what you think it is.

In case you missed them over on the event page, we wanted to showcase some of our DJs on next weekend's line-up for BASS: The Final Frontier

There's a bunch of femme-powered events on around Aotearoa over the next couple of weekends, e hoa mā!

If you are in Tūranga-nui-a-kiwa/Gisborne this Saturday - go see Aotearoa's original femme-build soundsystem NinthWavesound. We love them

Credit: Ariki Arts
Ariki Arts

Femme n Bass x Bigbada BOOM Sound System
September 23rd 2022

BIG PUNCH - NAM CHUCKS - SHAW SHOT - MISS THIRTY3 - MADAM MIM

A colourful poster, with big chunky text over a cartoon-style image of the soundsystem itself. The system has an amazing design, with an eyeball over the round speaker grill and teeth around the rim of the scoop below it. The recognisable lionesses of the Hineraiona crew flank the text.

We want to give a very belated shout out to Apex Art and Holly Gillard for designing our logo for us, the excitement of having stickers for our last gig was pretty huge! Awesome to have something visual to call our own

Kia ora e hoa mā, we're taking a bit of a break from gigs for a few months, keep an eye out fora date in 2023 👀

In the meantime, check out that time we were on RNZ talking about the Femme n Bass kaupapa and what it's meant to us to put on these nights

Femme n Bass Femme N Bass is a series of Wellington club nights born in 2021, platforming up and coming female identifying and non binary bass Djs and producers. Maggie Tweedie spoke to its creators about nurturing a new era of bass heads and promoting a healthy nightclub culture.

Credit: Holly Gillard
The Wubs - July 1st 2022
BABETECH - BIRKENTHOT - MEILANGE - GHOULIE - TANSY

An art nouveau style poster, with beautiful curling patterns and text surrounding a non-binary babe of colour, reclining on a speaker stack, them/them tattoos visible above their knees.

https://www.instagram.com/hpgillard/

Just another quick reminder about the SoundCheck Aotearoa workshops coming up - if you are involved in the music industry in any way, from promoting events to producing to working in a venue, there will be something of huge value to you, promise

Training & Events — Soundcheck Aotearoa We are continuously adding to our schedule of training to be delivered around the country and online. If you’d like to be added to our mailing list for updates please contact us on [email protected] or sign up using the link at the bottom of the page.

We've been looking through these photos and reliving the huge energy of the Breakfast Buffet! Thanks to everyone who came out, huge thanks to Drain Mane, Lazy Daisy, Current Bias, Foxtrot and BB Mage for laying down the tunes 🤘🤘

Big appreciation as always to Moon for hosting us, Dom for lending decks, Julian on the desk and Chaoslab for the lights

SoundCheck Aotearoa are putting on another series of workshops on reducing sexual harm in the music industry - we highly, HIGHLY recommend getting along to one if you are involved in the industry in any way, from working at a venue to promoting to being on stage yourself.

The workshop we attended had a massive influence on how we set and communicate the kaupapa of the Femme n Bass space, huge appreciation for this team

Training & Events — Soundcheck Aotearoa We're pleased to announce that in-person, FREE Professional Respect Training workshops are available again across the country:

Credit: Caitlin Bryne
Breakfast Buffet - May 27th 2022
DRAIN MANE - FOXTROT - LAZY DAISY - BB MAGE - CURRENT BIAS (who stepped up at the last minute when حلالاماما couldn't make it)

A babe with dark hair and headphones, holding an armful of fruit and breakfast treats, holding a banana up to their ear for a kōrero, on a blue-grey background with a tree silhouette

Here's a great write-up of LUSH, who we were ridiculously lucky to have on the line-up last Here-turi-kōkā/August for our Winter Wilds gig. Tautoko her and her project ninthWavesound

Laura Marsh is a feminist sound system builder, conceptual object maker, and sound and installation artist. Very recently she also became a mum.

Growing up in Dunedin and Wanaka, Laura could often be found dancing around the lounge with her walkman in hand. 1989 was a formative year with Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation and Redhead Kingpin hitting the charts - Laura Marsh had found American hip hop.

Laura studied film at Ilam in Christchurch whilst also putting in a healthy effort maintaining her status as a snowboarding and surf bum. It was then that she got her first taste of DJing, with hours upon hours of hangs n’ jams at a friend’s flat with a resident set of turntables and yet another friend’s collection of 90’s hip hop records.

Upon graduating from Ilam she moved to the North Island, to join the ‘film industry circus’ in Auckland, finding herself working on American turn around TV.

Living with DJs it was only a matter of time before Laura learnt that one could get paid 80 bucks an hour to play records for other people. With that valuable piece of information in hand she hit the secondhand shops to expand her fledgling 80’s vinyl collection, found herself a couple of party slots and excitingly, a way to fund a transition from working in film to ‘being an artist’.

In 2009 Laura enrolled to do her Masters in Art and Design at AUT. Her Masters Project ‘The Trouble With Being A Proud Pākehā’ spoke to the culture shock she had experienced moving from the South Island to Auckland, and the troubles inherent in claiming one’s white ethnicity.

While Laura had spent her life ‘making’, she was ready to ‘make’ with deeper ideas to inform and shape her practices, which were many and varied. She has a lot of good things to say about the AUT Art and Design School, with its amazing facilities, contemporary approach and openness and support for its students.

While in Auckland Laura started the radio show ‘The Lushelection’ on Base Fm, which kept going for ten years and became somewhat of a breeding ground and point of connection for female DJs, who Laura had come to realise were few and far between.

A three-month art residency in an ‘arts town of 3 million’ in Java, Indonesia supplied Laura with another culture shock to fuel her creative direction. Some of the projects she initiated there would feed into the PHD proposal that she submitted upon her return to Auckland. One of these projects was a women’s only dance club, for which she hired a big sound system for one night in order that local women could freely enjoy low frequency music in a safe environment.

Laura’s PHD thesis focused on the creation of women prominent spaces, to support greater gender diversity in what have traditionally been strongly male dominated and masculine environments; the DJ and bass-music scenes.

The benefits associated with growing up in a family of engineers became evident once it became clear that she was going to build a feminist sound system by hand for her PhD. The result is ninthWavesound - a sound system which ultimately is about enabling everyone the pleasure and the benefits of experiencing low frequency music, in a free space that everyone can feel comfortable in.

NinthWave has been the soundsystem in Wendy’s Wellness tent for the last two Splore festivals and was the system for the electronic stage at the Earthbeat Festival last year, with Laura curating the stage’s lineup, getting a few more female DJs behind the decks.

Laura Marsh is pretty stoked to have landed in the Tairāwhiti at this point in her life and is excited to get amongst some community projects, to collaborate and see what happens when women move into a space of ownership around sound making. Laura’s aspiration for ninthWavesound is as a safe space for people to find their way into sound, and to feel it.

While she is currently navigating the early days of parenthood Laura looks forward to hearing from people interested in collaborating with workshops, listening, dancing and sound healing events, and rangatahi-based events…anything involving sound, inclusivity and requiring a kick-ass sound system!

You can listen your way through Laura’s old radio shows and mixes on mixcloud.com/djlauralush, connect on instagram and check out her art or connect with a sound collaboration idea at lauramarshartist.nz

Image credit: Brett Crockett

Oh hello again Bandcamp Friday! From 7pm NZT :)

Go support your favourite musicians

Bandcamp Fridays Continue in 2022 FEATURES Ethan Diamond On the first Friday of the month since March of 2020, we’ve waived our revenue share to help support the many artists who have seen their livelihoods disrupted by the pandemic. Over the course of 17 days, fans paid artists and labels more than $73 million dollars, helping co...

Super proud of our femme n bass whānau Unsub & n0isemakeR's first video release for PHDM Records: Glitter VIP ft. J. Augustus & MC Astro 🔥

check it out and give them a follow here! ❤

Unsub & n0isemakeR ft. J. Augustus & MC Astro - Glitter VIP [Drumstep] - Official Video Directed by Lily UnsubCinematography by Taylor KokasPure Heart Dirty Mind

For the first Rāmere/Friday of every month, Bandcamp waive their commission fees, coz they are good beans. This Friday 1st April (from 8pm NZ time) is one of those days, head over and spend some money on some well-deserving artists! We've been cranking Sicaria Sound lately -
https://sicariasound.bandcamp.com

You can also find releases from Tāmaki-based artists حلالاماما and n0isemakeR on there, which is DEFINITELY not a sneak-peek at an upcoming line-up, and also unrelated to the fact you should all keep Friday 27th May free 👀👀

https://halalamama.bandcamp.com/releases
https://lilyunsub.bandcamp.com/album/chiaroscuro-lp

5th Gear / Quondam, by Sicaria Sound 2 track album

A great side effect of putting on gigs is POSTER ART! And we want more of it!

If you are a non-cis-male identifying designer or artist, or know someone you want to recommend, comment here or message us with some examples of your work.

We'd especially love suggestions and submissions from q***r, trans, POC and disabled babes (or anyone else who is usually sidelined by the mainstream)

Huge thanks to Plkpnn, Fleshy Disguise, Apex Art, Jasmine Sammons and Holly Gillard for the ataahua artwork so far 😍

[Image description: A spikey little DJ cartoon character behind the decks, on a grungy spraypainted background}

Birkenthot will be spinning some tunes tonight at the Performance Arcade, here's a sneaky new tune they've released as a tasty little ear treat

Mt Noise are currently doing a 7 day remix challenge with one of our absolute fav babes PollyHill !!! check ‘em out - would love to hear what y’all create 🧡

Performance Arcade is in full swing this weekend! Check out the whole programme here -
https://www.theperformancearcade.com/programme

Alice Agnes will be on the decks tonight repping their signature blend of styles, and new talent JOAVA will take us on a musical journey āpōpō/tomorrow night - not to be missed!

Ngā mihi nui once again to the Performance Arcade crew for giving us the chance to showcase these boss-as artists

Kia ora rude girls and boys,

In collaboration with FEMME N BASS. Your selector Big Punch of Hineraiona Crew Bigbada Boom Sound will be spinning the old reggae sound at The Performance Arcade 2022
Entry - FREE
When - Friday 25 Feb 10.30 PM!
Where - Fortune Favours Music Stage, Behind Te Papa
Event will be live streamed for those unable to attend!

The Performance Arcade is kicking off this weekend with tasters of the musical offerings, including a cheeky Femme n Bass DJ or two ;)

Check out the full programme and don't miss your new favourite performers! Guaranteed to be rawe atu/extremely awesome 🔥 🔥

Festival | The Performance Arcade | New Zealand The Performance Arcade is a free live art event on Wellington waterfront, run every year since 2011. The exciting programme of performance art and live music, installed within an assembly of shipping containers that creates an innovative new space for performance and arts presentation.

The Performance Arcade gave us the honour of curating their DJ line-up this year and we are SO stoked about it!

Check it out on the Pōneke waterfront this February, this festival always has some strange and wonderful offerings :D

They'll be rocking vaccine passes, capacity limits and separated seating for the music events so they can go ahead as safely as possible

FEMME N BASS is an amazing collective which was born when a craving to host great bass music met the desire to showcase Aotearoa's best femme and gender diverse DJ's and producers, while championing consent culture and respect for each other. Heck, yeah!

All our 2022 DJ slots are proudly curated by Femme n Bass - check out the full schedule online to see Alice Agnes, Joava, Birkenthot, Namchucks, Japes, Zaira DJ & Gallexi.

Femme n Bass | Fortune Favours Music Stage, Te Whanganui-a-Tara (behind Te Papa). FREE. theperformancearcade.com

Kia kaha e hoa mā!

We know we're facing a bunch of time in red and all the uncertainty or straight-up cancellations for all our performance and events-focussed babes out there :(

There IS some government support this time round - not as much as last time but if gigs are your income, check if you are eligible - https://mch.govt.nz/sites/default/files/projects/arts-culture-event-support-scheme-guide.pdf

And if you reckon it'll take more than that to keep our community afloat, sign the petition here -
https://www.change.org/p/labour-party-support-payments-for-workers-and-businesses-unable-to-operate-under-the-red-setting

In the mean time, take care of each other out there

mch.govt.nz