Various Artists
Album: The F Spot Femmes Fatales
Label: Folkstock
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.folkstockartsfoundation.com/

It is no coincidence that "F Spot Femmes Fatale" is officially being launched on International Women’s Day, March the 8th, as the album is most definitely and deliberately a compilation of range of female singer-songwriters, with voices that both literally and metaphorically, need to be heard.

It is a coincidence that the album is released in the week after the deconstruction of the poster advertising the Reading/Leeds Festivals, with only the names of the bands featuring female performers left on it. If you’ve seen it it’s a pretty blank canvas and made all the more so when you realise that the poster includes acts that include at least one woman, not that the woman is necessarily the focal point of the band.

"Femmes Fatales" is opened by a veteran performer, Peggy Seeger, with "You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are" and who brings a certain gravitas to the recording, letting you know that this is going to be an album that is rich on purpose and that the artists aren’t just hear because of gender, they are all linked by being songwriters with something to say.

Some of the songs are more of a personal expression, whilst other songs touch on wider experiences bringing in subjects such as war and inequality of a damned sight more things than gender, such as social justice and striving for a society that is based on merit. The things that the songs have in common, no matter the writing style and content is strength, that’s strength in both how the songs are put together as well as presented.

This is an album that celebrates standing up for and being yourself, no matter how much effort that takes. More importantly it does so in a way that not only makes you think, but also entertains. It’s very easy to relate to the themes and characters that are delivered by the ten artists on this compilation.

You can see the mother looking wistfully at the photograph of her soldier son, the simplicity of faith overcoming the oppression of slavery and the suppression of cultures. This is an album of tales and stories. It’s rich in symbols and high in inspiration, both absorbed by the performers and the way they’ve taken those influences and turned them into something special.

In someways I’d like to give you a track by track breakdown of the ten exceptional artists that make up this compilation, but the reality is, I’m just going to point you in the direction, it’s down to you to make the discoveries, all I’ll say is that it’s a journey well worth the effort.

Neil King