Siobhan Wilson performs Whatever Helps live at Paisley Arts Centre (The ...

This spellbinding performance of 'Whatever Helps' by Siobhan is indicative of her charisma as a live performer. While I couldn't find a full live set by her on YouTube, I did find a recent at-home cover of Tim Buckley's 'Song to the siren', which is well worth a watch.

Fantasy Festival number 1: The lineup

Zoe Graham: Newly relocated to Glasgow, Zoe Graham is a young Scottish singer/songwriter with three singles under her belt. She's also a Scottish Alternative Music Award winner. You can find her on Facebook here. 

Katy Carr: Polish-British singer/songwriter Katy Carr performs ukulele and electronic piano led folk and baroque narrative history music. She featured in my 2017 Fantasy Festival lineup, and it seemed only right to include her here. You can find out more about Katy over on her website. 

Helen McCookerybook: Frequent readers of the blog will know that Helen is a regular here, both as one of my punk women interviewees, but also in her capacity as a highly innovative solo singer/songwriter. Helen began her career on bass in Brighton punk band Joby and the Hooligans, was a founding member of The Chefs, and then went on to form Helen and the Horns. Helen's 7" album Pea Soup was recently reviewed here, and her album Green is out now. You can find out more about Helen over on her website. 

Maple Bee: Like Helen, Melanie Garside has a long musical history. Beginning as a multi braided front woman in Tabitha Zu in the 1990s (later just 'Zu'), she was one of Katherine Blake's Mediaeval Baebes for a while, served bass duties in sister Katie-Jane's band Queen Adreena before embarking on a solo career under the name Maple Bee. Her most recent album is Little Victories. Future releases are awaited with interest and you can check out her website here. 

Siobhan Wilson: Born in Elgin, Morayshire, classically trained composer and singer/songwriter Siobhan is two albums into a career of rigorous reinvention and experimentation. Based in Edinburgh these days, 2019's The Departure featured a more abrasive guitar sound and included a duet with Honeyblood's Stina Tweeddale. You can find out more about Siobhan over on her website. 

Emma Pollock: Former Delgado Emma Pollock and co-founder of Chemical Underground records has been carving out a solo career for fifteen years now. Her albums are regularly nominated for Scottish album of the year and she featured in the Scottish scene reunion film Lost In France. You can find out more about Emma over on her website. 

Honeyblood: Currently operating as a solo adventure, Honeyblood is the project of singer/songwriter and noise merchant Stina Tweeddale. Formerly of Edinburgh, these days resident in Glasgow, Tweeddale has been composing perfectly executed riff driven punk pop and grunge anthems since 2012. The critically acclaimed In Plain Sight, Honeyblood's third album, was released last year.  You can find out more here. 

First Aid Kit: Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit are comprised of sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg. They are four albums into a phenomenally successful career, and their gorgeous melodies 

and harmonies have allowed them to climb the live music ladder to larger venues at the same time as 

they have been garnered with multiple industry awards and nominations. You can find out more here. 

Emmy The Great: Understated, wry, quiet and well crafted songs always impeccably performed, musician, writer and composer Emmy The Great has been building up a body of work for over ten years now. She has released three albums, has collaborated on a number of film and TV soundtracks, and has an impressive body of work as a journalist. You can find out more here. 

Laura Marling: The great Laura Marling is seven albums into a long and prodigious career that while rooted in folk has become increasingly experimental over the years. 2017's Semper Femina exemplified this approach while 2020's Song For Our Daughter signals a return to her roots, and was a most welcome unexpected lockdown release. You can find out more about Laura over on her website. 

Songs of the year, number 14: Siobhan Wilson - Unconquerable

A duet with Honeyblood's Stina Tweeddale, 'Unconquerable' features on Siobhan Wilson's 2019 album, The Departure. While The Departure reflected a more indie rock infused direction for Siobhan, in contrast to her folk beginnings, Stina was adjusting to doing Honeyblood solo. The two Scottish songwriters came together at a pivotal moment for both of them and the result is a song that is a hymn to female independence and for that, I salute them both.

You can listen to the album over on Bandcamp, as well as on Spotify.

Photo of a red squirrel by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash

3 Little Pieces

Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash

It's a day for publishing little pieces.

After a bit of a flurry of longer length articles a couple of weeks ago, today has seen me writing about individual tracks and compiling this month's F-Word music blog post and playlist.

Writing about women and music around the same time as International Women's Day is always a bit weird.

It's as though all the PR companies and record companies wake up to the fact they've got some women on their rosters and, for one day only, start promoting the hell out of them.

OK, some of them remember to promote their female artists the rest of the year as well, but it's frustrating when you spend 364 days of the year receiving largely irrelevant promo (all of which I listen to, by the way) and then one day a year where pretty much 100% of it is relevant and useful.

It isn't great for a writer to receive a press release that contains a lot of stats, data and musical content that would be best served by an in depth piece... on the day that the PR wants the story written about and promoted. It's especially unhelpful when you've received about seven other equally interesting, in depth and complex press releases of equal interest on the same day.

I like writing women and music stories. I'm the music editor at a feminist website, I have licence to write those kind of stories, and commission them, 365 days of the year. As such, it would be better for me if I was given tip offs on interesting stories across the full 365 days, not all at once on one day in March.

Some PR's are very good and do pitch stuff to me with the feminist angle in mind, but most PR's don't. In a way, this is good because it means I have to actively seek out artists and music myself, which stops me getting lazy and complacent, but it's also bad because it means I get sent a lot of highly irrelevant music and music based press releases, that I still feel compelled to waste time listening to.

Long time readers will also be aware that another thing that annoys me is the lack of women headlining music festivals in the UK. I wrote about this two years ago, and it is touched on in this month's F-Word Music blog post, but I don't think I'll be leaving it at that. I think I'll be revisiting the issue before the summer is out. Watch this space.

Siobhan Wilson by Emma Dagger

Today I've also published a review of Siobhan Wilson's video 'Marry You' and the new Chromatic's song 'Time Rider'. Both of which are well worth checking out.

Earlier in the week, I also published another of my whimsical pieces for Medium, this time about possible historical predecessors to the podcast. As per usual, I had a lot of fun writing the piece, though I'm not massively convinced that a lot of people will read it. If you do take the time though, I hope you like it.