Our top five music collectives that are shaking up the industry

8 March 2017 | 8:25 am | Lauren Payne

Meet our five of the best women's collectives shaping the electronic music industry today & get involved!

International Women's Day is a fantastic day for a variety of reasons.

The most obvious reason is that it's a day to celebrate women. We celebrate their grace, their elegance, their fire, their talents, their strength and their wisdom. Feminism is a huge talking point and International Women's Day brings feminism into the front, making it a day to learn about what feminism actually is and what it means to so many across the globe.

It's also my mother's birthday, go figure.

This International Women's Day, we're highlighting the women that make the electronic music industry great. On a day-to-day basis, we listen to amazing tracks from a variety of women who really know how to craft a good song and balance the melodies with heartfelt vocals and fun beats. We also attend parties thrown by women all across the country, as well as seeing them at festivals, reading their thinkpieces, catching them DJ for Usain Bolt... The list goes on.

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Some women choose to go it alone, as a single force, and others, choose to band together as a collective to put out anything from mixes and tracks to putting on some of our most favourite nights.

This International Women's Day, we're highlighting five collectives who are shaking up the music industry one step at a time.

NAP GIRLS

Nap Girls International are simply perfection. Their mission is to connect and empower women by nurturing their creative strengths and guiding them through their professional careers. Nap Girls recently opened their first Australian chapter in Sydney and celebrated by throwing an epic party during the Electronic Music Conference last year. The collective have been creating explosive mixes featuring some of your favourite women on the electronic scene, have a listen and feel the power!

DISCWOMAN

Discwoman is based in New York City and is a musical platform, booking agency and collective representing women, trans women and genderqueer talent in the music industry. The collective kicked things off with a festival in 2014 and have since curated events in over 15 cities in the US and worked with hundreds of producers. They have a massive roster of electronic talent that includes UMFANG, VOLVOX, STUD1NT and BEARCAT who are fantastic producers and have been nurtured in the Discwoman family. Fingers crossed they head our way soon.

CRXZY SXXY CXXL

Here in Australia, we've been blessed with a massive list of talented women who have the ability to make our music scene great. Crxzy Sxxy Cxxl are a collective that aim to bring Aussie women to a safe haven of electronica with their parties down in Melbourne. The parties began in 2015 when DJs Jade Zoe and Mimi decided to expose their favourite city to the best hip-hop, grime, bass, dancehall, garage and electronica they could find. These parties are groovy as hell and are great for a late night boogie.

SOVEREIGN TRAX

Delving even further into local music is Sovereign Trax. Founded by Hannah Donnelly, this project may not be the dictionary definition of a collective, but is a collective in the way that it brings Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musicians together. Sovereign Trax creates monthly playlists of music coming from indigenous artists across the country. Each playlist highlights some of the best artists you may or may not have already discovered, shining a crucial light on those who may not have been able to be seen before.

SISTER WORLDWIDE

Sister is a collaborative collective that showcases talented women from across the globe by having them curate mixes that suit their own specific music styles and tastes. The collective was founded with the aim "of solidifying a network of women within underground club music" and they do this with a private Facebook group where women and non-binary members of the electronic music community can share and discuss anything and everything to do with tips and techniques in a safe space. The collective has over 1000 members and the network is constantly growing, each member is slowly being showcased on Sister's Soundcloud to nurture their talent and expose them to the global music community.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Words by Lauren Payne

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