Permanent Draft is a new micro press and label co-founded by poet and author Fanny Chiarello and drummer and percussionist Valentina Magaletti. The project is heralded by the publication of their first book, Basta Now: Women, Trans And Non-binary In Experimental Music, authored by Chiarello, that lists 2371 names of composers, artists and musicians.

In the following interview, Chiarello, Magaletti and I dive into the book, and the various senses in which it is also emblematic of their wider project. They discuss the challenges of gathering, listening to, and, in many cases, describing so many practices. Beyond simply wanting to share all of this sound, Chiarello also strives to find innovative methods of writing about it, that aims to be more open and less authoritative.

Irene Revell: Can you tell me how your collaboration started?

Valentina Magaletti: Well, I started as a percussionist and drummer, and I am a serial collaborator, I have a lot of projects. I thought more and more, especially after meeting Fanny, that I could be more of a vessel for other artists as well. And so, we thought about starting this micropress and label, just to share.

Fanny Chiarello: And we wanted a place where women, trans and non-binary artists would be listened to more than they are on other labels. You can just check labels and festivals, even in the media, what’s the percentage of women? It’s terrible.

VM: It's still very sad.

FC: I've published about 30 books, mostly novels, poetry, also books for teenagers. But I had only once written about a musician, Meredith Monk. I spent one month with her and attended rehearsals, concerts, galas, lectures, everything. I wrote about her but not particularly about music, not in a musicological way. When I met Valentina, for about five years I had already been making a census of women, trans and non-binary artists in experimental music. It was a huge list of thousands of names, but what to do with it? Valentina really encouraged me to do something with it. She helped me feel legitimate enough to do it: she said, you don't have to make something academic, you don't like that anyway, so do what you want. And talking about experimental music in an experimental way makes sense.

Absolutely. Can you tell me about the title, Basta Now? It sounds like it might be a catch phrase?

FC: Actually, it is something that Valentina says very often and that I think really reflects her life: she's spent half of her life in Italy and half in England. So Basta Now is a mix of both.

VM: It means “stop now”.

FC: And it also expresses this with a sense of humour which I really appreciate because I wanted this book not to be only political but also funny. I prefer to make fun of the situation, hoping that making fun of it will help change it…

VM: When bookers would say, “Oh, Valentina, you know, we would love to invite more women to festivals, but there's none!” that always reminded me of Fanny’s list, constantly compiling every day, finding more incredible women. And it’s like, “Basta Now”, it's enough, there's no excuse: there is a book! We're not doing this for any lucrative reason whatsoever, but just to make sure that everyone develops some sort of curiosity.

FC: Actually, the book is mostly an invitation to curiosity. I chose very weird angles or very personal ones to talk about experimental music. But really, it's not exhaustive and I'm a little embarrassed by it because I forgot many people or didn't know about them [before the book was published]. My list is ever expanding. So now we have bookmark one, with a list of all the artists that I discovered between the time the book went to press and the time the bookmark was printed, which was about three weeks, and there must be fifty names. And a second bookmark is on its way. But I keep thinking: it's okay, because anyway, it's an invitation for people to complete this list by themselves.

Did you have a method for searching? The ‘census’ started before the idea of the book, right?

FC: Yes, it's been seven years. I was interested in experimental music for a little while and I realised all of a sudden that I was listening only to guys, so I asked myself, where are the women in this genre? And so, I started searching: the big names came first, obviously. And then seeing who has collaborated with who, who else releases albums on this label? It’s a network: I mean, every name leads me to dozens of other names by various ways, like, “oh, she performed in that festival, who else was in the line-up? What was the line-up last year?” And sometimes for some really interesting festivals, I went back as far as 20 years searching all the line-ups, listening to the music, was it experimental to my ear, because I'm not a musicologist, but if it didn't sound experimental to me or if I didn't like it… it's also something very personal actually. And then I started being more and more, I would say organised and less personal. And then I thought OK, I have to do something, because the list was becoming huge.

Did it change the way you listen?

FC: Yes. I mean, it changed in many ways. First of all, there was this sense of duty to listen to every single record that I knew about made by a woman, and then also trans and non-binary artists. But when you listen to so much music every day you end up thinking that there is nothing really hard to listen to, you know? So, at the beginning I remember thinking, well, this is very noisy, this is very minimal, etc. And now my ear is so wide open to all kinds of experimental stuff, my ear has changed.

That’s amazing! It sounds like an extraordinary journey. I wonder if you could talk a bit more about this shift from being very subjective to having a sense of responsibility or duty, and the politics of selection?

VM: This sense of duty, I’ve also found as a musician. Like, at some point in your career you realise that even if you didn't want it to be at the beginning, it is political. And I remember one journalist started interviewing me about other female drummers, and then thinking, okay, I really have a voice now and I have to represent other percussionists. And I had the same feeling as Fanny – that, all of a sudden, this is just not a personal choice and just me making music. Now, I'm a voice and I have to be responsible, you know, for other people to be able to make a career and not just being circus material: “Oh, you’re good for being a woman.” I have to be that joy killer that I never wanted to be, but it’s time now. It’s again, “Basta Now”. At some point it just becomes political and you have to step up.

FC: I was 40 when I realised that everything I was reading, listening to, and watching all my life for 40 years had been mostly men, I had never figured it out before. I don't know why. And it really bothered me because I thought I had been…

VM: Brainwashed?

FC: You know, it's not that. It’s that my curiosity was not well tuned. And so, I decided that I would catch up on these 40 years.

Can you say something about the cover image?

VM: Fanny and I, we are sometimes obsessed by the images that come with instruction manuals. I received this clothes steamer for Christmas. And the instructions were just so good. You shouldn't put it on your face. You shouldn't put it on your heart. You shouldn't do this; you shouldn't do that. And so, the idea was: don't do this, don’t be a woman making music.

FC: It also shows a woman who doesn't know how to use a fucking steamer, you know?

VM: Exactly. And it has the cross as well. And we thought it's just so funny, and really entails what the book is about.

FC: It also suits the aesthetics that we want for Permanent Draft. We want it to be, as the name suggests, an aesthetics of little things, like a fanzine or Xerox art. And also, the aesthetics of the text: I wrote it thinking that it shouldn't be too polished, I wanted it to sound like something a little wild.

How did you organise the material into the chapters which are also ‘categories’? That must have been one of the bigger challenges?

FC: Well, I thought about what attracted me first to experimental music, and how did I understand that something that I was listening to was experimental? And the first thing was field recordings. I thought, OK, so when you can hear other things than the music itself, sounds from outside the studio, that must be experimental. And drones, and invented instruments. So, I had a few angles like this. And also, to me it was very important that there was a little intermezzo about avant-pop because how do you decide that something is avant-pop? Why is it experimental? Why is Cate Le Bon not considered as such, and Jenny Hval is? Or how do you know that someone is not just a singer but a vocalist, which is very different? And so, I chose the angles that to me were clearly identified as experimental methods or approaches. I was interested in the boundaries between what is mainstream, what is underground, why some people say that this is hard to listen to and some people think that this is popular music and how that mingles sometimes also. One foot in experimental and another in popular music, I think that’s very interesting. Valentina does that too in various projects to various extents.

I think there's something really fascinating here between experimentation and feminist politics. It feels to me that there’s a politics in re-classifying or de-classifying the idea of experimental or experimentation, on the one hand. But maybe it speaks both ways, that the experimental might be an inherent form of any feminist politics as well.

FC: To me, experimental music has something in common with poetry which is that it's a genre that is open to different kinds of ways of thinking, of seeing the world and expressing things. It's also a political place; it is what minorities use to write, to express life, another experience of life expressed in a different way. I think experimental music allows that a lot, too.

On that note, how would you like the book to be read, and used?

VM: Some people who have read the book have said, I really love how it’s like talking to a complete stranger that you just met and having a broad conversation about music. And it’s like you have listened to artists, even if you haven't, through Fanny’s words. And I think that's a beautiful, humble way to reach someone on any level, just having a big conversation and getting curious about this artist that you’re talking about even if you've not been listening to any sort of avant-garde music. The main value that we want is inclusivity and making sure that the book reaches everyone, not being in this pretentious cage. Loads of my friends don't come to my shows, they say, “I can't do that!” That being the experimental world. And there must be a way to describe this experimental world in a way that makes it more accessible.

FC: I hope it can really open minds and show people that it's actually fun, experimental music is exciting. And it's not only for elitists.

Is there something that we haven't discussed that you feel is important to note about the book?

FC: Well, I would also say that when I included an artist in the list, I forgot almost at once if they were a woman, trans or non-binary artist. Once you are in the list, the only thing I'm interested in is your music. I want this to be very clear because I'm also a little anxious that people might be disappointed not to find anything about how gender can influence the way you create. It's not about that. It could have been, but it's not.

VM: That’s another book. I also love Fanny’s artistic statement when she said, “this book is not against men, it's simply not about them.” It has to be clear. You know, I collaborate with loads of guys myself…

So, what's next for Permanent Draft?

VM: Permanent Draft only really just started and it's tiny. I'm always on the road and Fanny is super busy as well, writing. Before the book, we had a cassette from Ondata Rossa which is the quartet with Dali de Saint Paul, Yoshino Shigihara, Agathe Max and I. And then we just repressed my Queer Anthology Of Drums, and also an EP which has a very similar cover as Basta Now, I mean the other thing you should not do with a steamer!

FC: And in the spring, we're going to make a cassette of an artist who sent us her album, Irene Bianco. She's a drummer too and we really love the album. So that will be the first release that none of us were involved in.

Read Irene Revell's review of Basta Now in The Wire 483. Wire subscribers can also read the review online via the digital magazine library.