Laura Lloyd, Jasamine White-Gluz, Ben Rayner, Alaska B., Melissa Auf der Maur

It probably comes as no surprise that an audience for a discussion about women and music would be filled with, well, women. Such was the case in mid-June when Melissa Auf der Maur led a thoughtful conversation at Toronto’s NXNE festival titled “Women in Music: More Than Ever Before.”

Auf der Maur was joined by Yamantaka // Sonic Titan drummer Alaska B. and Jasamine White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd from Montreal shoegazers No Joy. As the only dude on the panel, Toronto Star music writer Ben Rayner rose to the challenge, adding thoughtful responses as a media insider (apparently, many journalists still think it’s amazing that women can play the drums and that it’s OK to waste your story lead describing the various comely attributes of a female singer).

Wearing a cherished Isis talisman around her neck, Auf der Maur came at the subject with positive energy, taking cues from a blog post she wrote for the Huffington Post stating: “Original, talented, independent and self-reliant, women are in the forefront of music today.”

And yet all three original, talented, independent women on the panel shared stories of gender bias, which I’m sure comes as no surprise to anyone, either (read Steph Guthrie’s blog post for a round-up of shit guys say to women musicians). In particular, Alaska B., who as a mixed-race trans woman in a radical (Polaris Prize–nominated!) band, says she feels like an outsider, “whichever way I turn,” describing how her first band in the Montreal punk scene used to receive death threats. It’s frightening that any artist should ever have to face that situation.

Perhaps not wanting to ruin Auf der Maur’s happy vibe, the panelists seemed to shrug  it all off as an occupational hazard, preferring instead to focus discussion on the music itself.

But what happens if your songs aren’t being heard?

Many of my women musician friends (and some members of the NXNE audience that day), have expressed frustrations with the lack of representation in music media and at festivals. Having sat on many juries, I know how the process goes, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard an organizer express concern that there are too many bros on stage.

So what can be done? Self-governing seems to work for literature. This week, Canadian Women in the Literary Arts released their second count of gender trends in Canadian book reviewing. The good news is that there are more women authors being reviewed and more women critics doing the reviews than last year when CWILA first pointed out some of the egregious gaps. It’s hard to say what really motivated some editors to examine the issue (Shame? Ego? Competitiveness? Or an honest attempt to correct the issue?), but as a first step, it seems to be effective.

Imagine if someone were to take on a gender count of reviews (and reviewers) in Canadian music publications, or tracked the number of women bands that appeared at festivals over the course of a year. Of course it doesn’t change the systemic reasons behind the bias, but maybe a few more people would get a chance to hear music created by women. And more women would get paid to play music. And be selected for prize shortlists. And maybe after a few rounds of this we won’t need any more panels telling us how far we’ve come.

Yamantaka // Sonic Titan (photo: Derrick Belcham)

As a former Polaris Music Prize juror, I still get phantom pain whenever the award shortlist is announced and the inevitable backlash begins (for well thought-out criticism read Josiah Hughes and Mark Teo’s essay, “Canadian Music is Boring,” in FFWD.)

But I’m guilty of award bashing, too. After reading the shortlist, I immediately grumbled about the exclusion of Rich Aucoin’s euphoric We’re All Dying to Live, rather than congratulating the bands on the list I do admire. And just this morning, I shook my fist (Twitter-style) on the streetcar when I read that Louis CK didn’t receive an Emmy nom for his brilliant writing on the comedy Louie. A crime, that is.

But back to the Polaris. If you want a broad idea of what’s happening in Canadian music – regionally and sonically – the award’s longlist of 40 albums is probably as close as you’ll get in any sort of official way. It’s when the 200-plus jurors pick their five favourites for the 10-album shortlist that it all gets watered down, as Hughes and Teo suggest. (Have you ever tried to herd 200 cats? They’re never going to move together, unless maybe there’s milk involved).

And yet each year without fail, there’s at least one album on the shortlist that surprises. Not because of artistic merit, but because enough jurors heard something so special it made them want to use one of their five votes over, say, Leonard Cohen. Arguably, this year’s dark horse is Yamantaka // Sonic Titan’s album YT // ST.

Founded by performance artists alaskaB and Ruby Kato Attwood, the Montreal/Toronto band touts itself as an “Asian, Indigenous and Diasporic Art Collective” that performs “Noh-wave,” a sly reference to underground No Wave and traditional Japanese musical drama. YT // ST is a fantastic, percussive explosion, as much inspired by Buddhism and Chinese opera as it is death metal and 1960s psych rock.

What I love about Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, beside its dramatic live performances (one of the best shows at this year’s NXNE), Kiss makeup and the spectacle of it all, is that they’re musically inclined artists who see no need to extract their artistic practices from their music. It’s a strong tradition in this country, one that includes art stars such experimental filmmaker and sculptor Michael Snow, who recorded numerous jazz and improvisation records over the years, to lesser known talents like Halifax artist Mitchell Wiebe, whose various bands are as much a part of his practice as his paintings and his performance art as the alien-like creature Dweebo. Then there’s the Cedar Tavern Singers AKA Les Phonoréalistes, an Alberta duo who were nominated for the Sobey Art Award for their songs about conceptual art and art history (look for a feature in the Sept./Oct. issue of This).

When it comes down to it, I’ve realized, is that any time you give the general public a dose of conceptual art wrapped in an established music award, there’s really nothing to complain about.

VIDEO: Hoshi Neko – Yamantaka // Sonic Titan