BASTA NOW. WOMEN, TRANS & NON-BINARY IN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC by FANNY CHIARELLO

A5 392 page book. Edition of 500 copies.

Basta Now. Women, Trans & Non-binary in Experimental Music is a non-academic essay by French poet, novelist and music enthusiast Fanny Chiarello. 

Basta Now is an introduction to the vast womxn experimental scene that was never written about, unravelling in the end a list of 2371 names of female, trans and non-binary artists around the world. The form is playful and is laid out in a careful design with illustrations, photos and lists, including discographies .

Basta Now is the first book publication on Permanent Draft, an all-female record label and micro-press founded by musician Valentina Magaletti and writer Fanny Chiarello that aims to give exposure to contemporary female, non-binary and transgender artists.

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“In 2017, I set out to identify women from around the world making experimental music, who I considered worthy of more attention. Ever since, I've been adding names almost every day to an ever-expanding document, with a short biography for each, collated from online press or the artist’s website.

For a long time, I wondered what form to give to this database. I didn't want an academic approach, moreover I am neither a musicologist nor even an essayist but a novelist and a poet. When Valentina and I decided to found our all-female experimental music label, we thought it was time to give it a try. My book does not claim to be exhaustive, not even to cover the innumerable fields covered by the term "experimental music", but it will invite readers to open up and set off to discover a very rich and largely unrecognised universe

I think of all the curators who say that they would like to move towards parity of guest artists but that they don't know where to find women, and I dream that this book will be part of the answer – not as it would prescribe but as it would just say "Hey guys, open your eyes, they are just there, they are everywhere"...

The book will be produced in the aesthetics of fanzines, a bias that we think sticks with the DIY spirit of the music in question but also with the name of our own label, Permanent Draft.”

(Fanny Chiarello, 2023)