Female Dub Techno Artists

It is not a secret that electronic music scene is dominated by men, and when we’re talking about niche styles like dub techno, even more so. Although there is no reason for it to be that way. However, in the last decade or two, the amount of female artists has greatly increased, and now we have some big names, filling venues, presenting some exciting electronic music, inspiring other female artists, proving that there is space in this field for women too. Now, if you look at a YouTube channel of Telekom Electronic Beats you will find a more and more women DJ’s and producers being featured.

What ispired me to write this post, was a video from the Dub Monitor YouTube channel named “The History of Dub Techno (in 17 minutes)“. In it the author mentiones that females are very under-represented in this niche style. And that made wonder how many female artists I can find. At the time I could hardly name one. I decided that will be an interesting topic to research, and maybe prove Dub Monitor wrong about this.

What helped me tremendously while doing research for this article is the SoundCloud account of the L’Appel du 8 Mars project. It is a French organization dedicated to promote women and non-binary artists in electronic music through an annual event organized on the International Women’s Day. Founded in 2017, it aimed to provide critical reflection on the visibility given to female talents on stage. Their first event was launched in Paris in 2018, where they gathered a line up of 14 female artists, 8 industry leaders and started with round tables, where guests could discuss matters regarding the representation of female artists and the challenges they face in their careers. By promoting female inclusion in the electronic music scene, L’Appel du 8 Mars hoped to bring more equality among genders in this industry. They have done a preliminary study on how female artists are represented in the scene which you may check out here, if you’re interested in the subject matter. However, I believe, from what I was able to find, they haven’t done any events since 2019.

So here I go.

The first female dub techno artist I came across was Slow Dimension. She is also known as Lou Berlinger, and she’s from France. Lou also runs her own record label called Nevermind Records, which so far has only one release in the catalog.

Slow Dimension aka Lou Berlinger

When I contacted Lou, she asked if I found about her via female.pressure. Forgive me for my ignorance, but I had no idea what that is, but Lou was kind to explain. female.pressure is a database of female and non-binary electronic music artists, founded by an electronic music artist Electric Indigo. I was happy to come across such a resource, however the search engine of the database isn’t good enough, I couldn’t narrow down the search results to what I need exactly and therefore was not able to find more female dub techno artists. Nevertheless, you have to appreciate the existence of such project, and I’m sure it is useful to some extent. But now, let’s just go ahead and listen to some music by Slow Dimension!

Slow Dimension · Orion (without Mastering)

Next on my list is Federika. I must say she is not purely a dub techno producer, but the aesthetics of her music will be appreciated by most dub tech heads in my opinion. They’re chill, minimalist, deep and they feature chords. That’s a recipe we all love. I admit though, that some of her stuff will not fit into the definition of dub techno.

Federika

Federika is from Spain and she runs her own label called Kapikua Records. Unfortunately I was’t able to dig up much more information about her. But I think her music will say more than any of my ramblings could.

Now let’s talk about Dana Ruh. Again, this producer from Berlin is not purely a dub techno artist, but a lot of her tracks will be appreciated by you. She also runs her own label called Brouqade, with her colleagues Ann M Cazal and Anthea Marie. And I believe Cave Recordings is her imprint as well, as all the links on discogs.com lead to her SoundCloud page, and the catalog holds releases only by her. Also recently Dana announced on her facebook that she’s launching a BQDTRX imprint. A lot going on.

Danah Ruh

Danah Ruh has been active in the scene for quite some time, and there’s a lot to explore if you’re interested in her work. I don’t have much more to say, and I don’t want to just be copying from her biography which you can read on your own. So I’ll just share some of her music.

RDV music · Dana Ruh “4 Leaf Clover”

Dana Ruh · CR004 – Time Out Of Mind – Dana Ruh

Now it’s time to talk about Lauren Lo Sung from Liverpool, UK. Not only she is a producer, but also runs her own label and event series LOLiFE, and also runs another label named e1even records with her colleague Sian Bennet. It’s an interesting trend I notice among these women, besides DJ’ing and producing a lot of them tend to run somekind of brand or a project as well, which I think is admirable.

Lauren Lo Sung

She has a lot of releases in her discography on many different labels. Again, maybe some will argue that she is not purely a dub techno producer. But I think a lot of her tracks would fit a dub tech set perfectly well. Check out some of her stuff and you’ll see.

Lauren Lo Sung · Lauren Lo Sung – Lucid Dream (Original Mix)

Lauren Lo Sung · B2. Lauren Lo Sung – Lara’s Dub (Original Mix)

Lauren Lo Sung · A1. Lauren Lo Sung – Running (Original Mix)

Next! It is Luna Ludmila from Netherlands. She started DJ’ing when she was around 18, but as her bio says, she likes to spend a lot of time in the studio, producing her own music. Luna aslo says she’s a hardware enthusiast. And that is perfectly shown in her studio jam video on YouTube.

To me her stuff sounds lush. Luna’s sound fits my taste buds very well. Follow her, as I feel this is only the beginning for her. I for sure will.

Luna Ludmila

Some of her music below.

Next on my list is Nadja Lind from Germany. And once again, she is running her own label called Lucidflow, that is active since 2009. She started it together with Helmut Ebritsch. They’ve worked with artists like Trentemoller, Marko Fürstenberg, Fluxion etc. They also make music together under the name of Klartraum, where you will find some cool dub tech grooves as well. But for this article I will only focus on Nadja.

Nadja Lind

She’s been producing music since 2004, and has produced so much that I don’t even know where to begin. She also focuses on making healing music, made for meditation, relaxation and things of that sort, and it seems to me that health, awareness and spirituality is a big part of her world. I invite you to listen to some of her stuff below. Her older releases seem to be less oriented towards dubby sounds though.

And finally, there’s Alteria Percepsyne. However, she has discontinued this alias and know makes music under the name of Glossata, where she now focuses on ambient sound, with occasional minimalist techno beats.

Emily Griffiths (her real name) has distanced herself from the dub techno sound since she began producing as Glossata, and has not released any new stuff recently with neither of her aliases, which I really hope will change. As she’s no doubt one of the most talented artists mentioned on this post. She’s from UK, and has released music on the great Silent Season imprint. However, that’s all I was able to find about her. Emily seems to be a secretive artist, not really seeking for attention, but letting her works speak for her. I respect that type of an attitude for an artist. Anyway, enjoy her music.

I also want to mention Duchess of Dub. As a producer she’s still on a beginner level, but she has recorded many DJ mixes, which is always appreciated by the fans of the style.

And that’ll be it. If I have missed something, I sincerely apologize, please let me know about it in the comments. Cheers!

Written by Evaldas Azbukauskas