Woman's Hour - DJ songwriter Sister Bliss. Deaths from cocaine. Starting a business during lockdown.

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Sister Bliss is a DJ, songwriter and one of Britain’s most iconic and long lasting female electronic artists. She is perhaps best-known as a member of the British electronic band Faithless. She joins Katya to talk about her thirty year career, going from the underground club scene to sell-out arena shows. Female deaths due to cocaine have risen by 26.5% in 2019, according to the ONS. Why is the number of women dying from cocaine use increasing so rapidly? The UK economy has taken a real hit during the pandemic with figures suggesting women with small business start ups in areas like beauty, leisure and hospitality being worst affected. But the crisis also seems to have spurred on many others to take the plunge and go out on their own. And Dr Polly Russell the lead curator of a major new exhibition Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights’ which opens at the British Library tells us how the work of contemporary feminist activists in the UK has its roots in the long and complex history of women’s rights. Presenter Katya Adler Producer Beverley PurcellGUEST; Ian Hamilton GUEST; Maxine Luckhurst GUEST; Molly Masters GUEST; Emma Jones GUEST; Dr Polly Russell

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger.

Listen wherever you radio, podcasts. You're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast for Thursday the 22nd of October. I'm Katya Adler. Hello and good morning. Powder cocaine, once labelled the middle class party growers drug of choice, is now the second most frequently used illegal drug in the UK for adults aged between 16 and 59. Increasing numbers of women are dying from an overdose. We're going to hear today how across the country

women are using the drug to cope with housework, childcare and depression rather than partying through the night. Also on the programme, we'll hear words and beats from Sister Bliss, DJ, songwriter and one of Britain's most iconic and long-lasting female electronic artists. Her band Faithless have a brand new album out. It's their first in 10 years. And she says she's feeling the pressure of expectation. And shoes.

Wedding day, disastrous job interview. The sandals your mum gave you in the middle of a thunderstorm. Happy, sad, or actually just bonkers, we want to hear from you the stories behind your three favourite pieces of footwear. You can email us via the website or contact us on Twitter or on Instagram at BBC Women's Hour. But first, being an entrepreneur, the owner of a start-up, is always risky as we know, but the nightmare that is the COVID crisis has sounded the death knell for businesses up and down the country. Later this morning, we're waiting to hear from the chancellor.

He's expected to announce new support for workers in parts of England living under tier two coronavirus restrictions. But we all know businesses are suffering and figures suggest women with small business startups and leisure and beauty, for example, have been disproportionately hit. But listen to this. We have some hope in the darkness. Women are also leading the way in startups in the new Covid economy, as it's become known, with small businesses springing up during the pandemic or that have been given a boost by the strange new reality that we live in. Emma Jones from Enterprise Nation joins me now. It's an organisation that helps small scale home businesses with one to 10 employees get off the ground. Good morning, Emma. Good morning, Katia. And Molly Masters is also with us, a 23 yearyear-old entrepreneur. Molly, your turnover has quadrupled over the last six months under

COVID with your feminist book subscription service. So congratulations on that. We'll be speaking to you in just a moment. Thank you so much. First of all, Emma, if we look at female-led small startups, you know, we're desperate for some good news, aren't we? Is this though really a good news story or is it not so simple? No, Katja, it's very much a good news story. And absolutely, as you say, I think this is what people are wanting to hear. So, in June and July is when the startup boom in the country started to happen. So, lots of indicators, I suppose the main one being Companies House, which is where people go to form a new company. Companies House recorded record numbers of new companies being formed in June

and then July. The government's startup loans received lots of applications. So, what we've seen, Katja, over the past few months, and of course, you referenced this, small businesses have had very challenging times. But what we've also seen is people have been at home, potentially with more time if they've been on furlough. And what that has enabled them to do is either pick up a business that they were running alongside the day job pre-COVID, or indeed spot gaps in the market. So they've looked for products and services, couldn't find them out there, and thought, actually, could this be the time to start a business and plug that gap? OK, so you say that, you know, people have got more time on their hands.

Let's look at women, though. I mean, here on Women's Hour, we've spoken a lot about how women overall have been impacted by a greater extent than men during the Covid crisis. You know, often having to take over childcare at home. So more time on their hands, but yes, more also to do at home. I mean, how come women are showing this resilience in the startup world, do you think? Is it down to that famed multitasking? That is indeed one of the factors.

So there's a couple of factors. First of all, the gaps in the market that we have seen is when now everyone's at home, many local customers are looking for things in their local area, such as all their health and fitness classes. Can I get athleisure to where now I'm working from home? I'm spending more time in my home. I want to buy beautiful things for my home or my garden. I'm looking to buy good bakery and food products for my local area. And dare I say, these are the kind of businesses that tend towards female entrepreneurs founding them. So, certainly, there has been this rise in, you mentioned this at the beginning, beauty, catering, health and fitness. These have shown the starkest rises in the number of startups. That tends well to female founders. But also, Katya, as you say, when anyone starts a business, you are literally

the HR director. You're the head of finance. You're the head of sales. You clean up at the home office at the end of the day. And of course, women are incredibly good at this. So, there is this case of women are spotting the gaps. They have the skills that tend well towards entrepreneurship. But the other beautiful thing of starting a business, and we have seen this the decade plus that Enterprise Nation has been operating, we've heard this a million times, is self-employment works really well for female founders because, of course, you can grow the business around the family. So, you've got that flexibility to maybe decrease the hours in the business when, as you say, child care takes over. But then when the kids go back to school, you can spend more time on it.

So you can flex. And of course, the business responds in that way. And of course, we know that can often lead to working unholy hours during the night though as well we're trying to focus we're of course not closing our eyes uh to all the bad news out there for for workers um and uh business owners but a bit of good news molly we want to hear yours tell us about about your business yes so thank you so much for having me i'm i'm molly and i'm the founder and ceo of books that matter and we're the uk's leading book subscription box, putting women's writing in the spotlight through our unique reading experiences. So at its core, each of our boxes contain a book by female authorship and at least three themed gifts from independent creatives delivered to feel like a gift every single month. And what we saw over the period of lockdown was a quite startling for us

growth and elevation. Quadrupling, let's say it out loud. Yeah, quadrupling. That first month was both an exciting time and a very big challenge for our very small business at the time. So it was, it was, yeah, very unexpected, but such a a wholesome wholesome change to see so many people getting back into their love of reading and wanting to support female writers as well yeah so yours is a female book subscription service and you're thinking of starting something um similar so in another sort of book box idea for children yes so we actually launched last week and that book subscription box is called Brave Girls Book Club. And so with the growth that we've seen over this time, it's actually given us the financial injection to get that kind of other dream off of the ground,

because we want to be empowering women and girls across the whole spectrum with diverse stories and really powerful protagonists. So that was a really great, great thing. And last week's launch went really well. Well, that's great news. Just back to you, though, Emma, because we heard Molly telling us about the financial injection to seek external finance to bolster cash flows when they start a business. And that's leading those businesses to fail more often than startups run by men. So, you know, it's one thing to start a business and another to keep it going. How does the future look for these female run entrepreneurships? Yeah, it's definitely still an issue, Katja. And I guess our response to this is to deliver lots of support and education for female founders. When it comes to raising money, there are still absolute differences in the risk

appetite between female and male founders in all the surveys we do. This is kind of the startling figure that comes through. So, we deliver lots of education to say, here's how you can feel comfortable with things like cash flow planning. Let's connect you with an accountant who can help you. We're delivering lots of support at the moment, a brilliant program called the Amazon Small Business Accelerator, which is training 200,000 people in how they improve their digital skills. Because from that, you grow sales, you grow confidence, and it makes you feel better about thinking about raising money. So I know that the environment is very challenging. However, the future we see for entrepreneurship and business growth is very strong.

And just the one final thing that we have seen over the past few months is businesses that have stayed very local have done very well. So those businesses that have served this community of people who are now at home have performed very strongly, but also so have online businesses such as Molly's where you can reach a much wider audience. So these are all the skills and the support we're now offering to businesses, either how to attract local customers to your business, or indeed, how to get online to reach even more people, if not in the UK, all across the globe. That's aim high, aim high. So you're talking about the support that you offer businesses in the UK or globally. What about the government? I mean, the government is funnelling a lot of money into businesses and employer help schemes. We're waiting to hear from the Chancellor later this morning. Has it been enough, in your opinion? In my opinion, it has. I think I'm in a minority

in saying this. We have watched and with great appreciation, actually, the support that the government has delivered. So, over the past seven months, and we have been reporting on this daily to make sure that our business community is up to date with what's on offer. So, there have been the cash grants for businesses that had physical premises. There have been the bounce back loans where £39 billion was lent to small businesses, the furlough programme, etc., etc. So, there has been a huge amount of support. And I guess where we come from with this, Katja, is we are very focused at Enterprise Nation on encouraging business owners to move forward. And we spent three months helping businesses get their financial rescue package in place.

So, we gave lots of advice on how to access the government support. But we really feel now businesses have got to look ahead. They may need to change what their business does if their customers are buying in different ways or if they've got new customers coming in. And therefore, the support that we feel there should be focus on now is how do we help businesses move on from what's happened, re-engage with their customers, bring those sales in and get some financial fitness back in the economy. So that's where our focus is, is let's proactively look ahead at where those future sales will come from. And of course, but of course, you know, there is so much uncertainty, isn't there,

Emma, because we don't know how the Covid crisis is going to develop. And of course, Brexit, will there be a deal or won't there be a deal by the end of this year? But that's something to discuss another day. Emma Jones and Molly Masters, thank you so much for joining us today and giving us some positive business stories as well. Now, here on Woman's Hour, we do not give up easily. That's something that you can say about us. And in the new era of COVID broadcasting, we refuse, I tell you, to be beaten by the vagaries of technology. On the programme yesterday, we just started talking

about a thrilling new exhibition opening at the British Library on Friday. It's called Unfinished Business, the Fight for Women's Rights. And we were rudely interrupted by the line dropping out. So that's our own bit of unfinished business that we want to get back to. So joining us again is curator of the exhibition, Dr. Polly Russell. Fingers crossed, Polly, that we actually get to properly chat now. Thank you so much for having me back. It's great to have an opportunity to talk about the exhibition. Well, it's just just even the, you know, the title of the exhibition is intriguing, unfinished business. I mean, you know, the title of the exhibition is intriguing, Unfinished Business. I mean, you could just say there's a lot of women's rights fighting for that we still need to do. But this is an exhibition that throws back and throws forward simultaneously,

doesn't it? Yeah, that's right. So the exhibition, we are thrilled, is opening tomorrow, finally. And you're right, Unfinished Business, that title really speaks to what we're trying to do which is capture the contemporary moment of activism of engagement with ideas about feminism and like a recognition that's really come to the fore in the light of covid and black lives matter of how much is yet to be done of how you know particularly um, working-class women, women from ethnic minority backgrounds have very precarious employment, lower wages, that domestic abuse has been on the rise, all sorts of issues that your listeners will be all too familiar with

still require attention, and yet they're connected to this really long history, a fascinating history of activism and protest and i love that you use the word tenacity because i think when you look at this history tenacity humor um courage are the are what you feel about our mothers grandmothers great-grandmothers and their allies in the past who have fought for for improvement in women's lives in all all fears it's what you feel it's what you can read about but you're actually giving us a feast for our eyes as well as our ears and our minds at this um exhibition it's it's really multifaceted tell

us a bit about that well that's right because just like the story that it tells which is complex it's contested um it's an ambitious story, it's a bold story, we wanted to make sure that it really came alive, that it wasn't sort of quiet and sort of library-esque. This is a really lively exhibition. And so we've got in the exhibition more than 180 objects, both from our own collections, but also we've borrowed from private lenders and from libraries and archives across the country. Many of the objects have never been seen before. We've got banners, manuscripts, posters, film, sound, art, clothing. I mean, you name it,

we've got it in order to try and capture the energy of, you know, what has been an incredible movement and engagement with ideas about women's history and women's rights. And just before we go into more detail about the exhibition, I'm sure that there are listeners out there who are thinking, well, it's all very well, but there's COVID-19 and I can't travel down to the British Library to go and see this exhibition. But you are online too, right? Also for schools to access. Yeah, absolutely. So of course, if people can visit, it would be wonderful.

We're providing a very safe environment. The environment is sanitised. The experience definitely will not be. But of course, we understand many people won't be able to for COVID reasons, but also just it being in London. We've got lots of other things you could engage with. We've got a fantastic exhibition website on which we've digitized around 100 objects from the exhibition and have really rich contextual essays around those objects. We've got a fabulous events program, which is all digital, which I really encourage people to look out. For instance,

Gloria Steinem is speaking soon. And then we've also done a full podcast series around the exhibition and what this allows us to do is to delve deep into some of the themes of the exhibition using exhibition objects and we've invited experts to host it so people with a particular expertise or an axe to grind we've got people like Jamila Jamil hosting, Susie Orbach, Laurie Nunn, Victoria Pendleton, Sahima Manzoor Khan. So amazing voices talking about things as diverse as the politics of sexual pleasure, race and beauty, cycling, domestic violence, all sorts of subjects. So there's lots of ways that you can engage with this exhibition, even if you can't actually come to physical space in London. And when you talk about the objects that you have there,

some of them are quite surprising. Toilet paper as a means of protest, for example. Can you tell us a little bit about some of these objects and how you've divided the exhibition, I do love this, into mind, body and voice as a way of having a look at women's stories in the past and present in the UK? Yes, so when we were thinking about this exhibition, like I say, it's a huge history. It's very, very diverse. It's incredibly rich, but it's also therefore hard to impose a kind of

organizing structure on it. We could have come up, we came up with all sorts of different strategies, but in the end, we went with body, mind and voice in recognition that unless you have control over those aspects of your life, you can't live a fully realized life. And that those areas, body, mind and voice, have been areas that women have historically struggled in order to have autonomy. So those are the kind of overarching sort of organizing categories. And then within each of those, they split into sort of further themes and i should say every single section of the exhibition of which there are nine in total is headed up by a contemporary activist organization so we've got activist organizations like bloody good period women for women glasgow women's library also interesting contemporary organizations but you're absolutely

right there are some really unusual objects in the exhibition as well, and the Louvre paper is possibly one of the most surprising. This is from our own collections, and they are poems which Sylvia Pankhurst wrote on paper while she was imprisoned for sedition in 1921.

And she wrote them with a smuggled-in pencil, and she wrote these poems which testify to the suffering, really, of being force-fed, of being incarcerated, of being in prison. And they are the most fascinating example, really, of women's tenacity, of Sylvia Pankhurst's refusal to be silenced, even when in the worst conditions possible. And they were subsequently then published into a book of poems called Unto the Birds. So they were really lovely, unique objects for people to see for the first time.

Polly, I'm so sorry. We are plagued once again by technical issues, but it's been great to chat to you about the exhibition, Unfinished Business, The Fight for Women's Rights. It starts at the British Library this Friday. We were just speaking to Polly Russell. We stayed there to the end, you know, despite the technology. Also, what Polly was saying earlier, referring to the Black Lives Matter moment,

the exhibition really does look how women's rights in the UK have been experienced differently, depending on a woman's background, her colour, religion, not just the generation she was born in. And one of the items at the exhibition is the first account of the life of a black woman published in Britain. So do take a look, do delve in digitally if you can't in person into that exhibition. Now, we were talking about artefacts, weren't we, and objects in the exhibition, how clothes and diaries and banners can tell a story. Well, here on Woman's Hour, we're starting a brand new series called My Life in Shoes. And we want to hear from you. If you're anything like me, your mind is probably already racing through your shoe collection.

So we want you to find three pairs. Please take a photo and then send us a brief outline of the story that these three pairs of shoes tell. For example, I was just thinking this morning, I still have my dusty heavyweight ankle boots that I use for war reporting in Gaza. On this one occasion, I'd basically been in the territory for days during Israeli bombings, but I'd had to cross back into Israel to make an appointment that I'd set up weeks before to try on wedding dresses. Now, I had no other shoes with me. I walked in there on my own looking very dusty and dirty. The shop assistants weren't impressed, but it certainly made me laugh. Having mentioned this right at the beginning of the program, we've already started getting in emails, which is brilliant.

For example, this one from Isabel. I once saw this most glorious pair of bright blue platform-soled floral patterned shoes, says Isabel, and she sent us a great picture as well. My husband, who I'd unwisely taken along, said rather deprecatingly, you'll never wear those shoes, darling. Oh, wouldn't I? They were there, most excruciatingly trying to walk along

the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, but I have kept them. I didn't keep the husband's best wishes, Isabel Madden. Well, thank you for sharing that with us, Isabel. We really want to hear your stories and see your shoes as well. You can email us via the website,

use twitter or instagram at bbc woman's hour and coming up still on this program and while you're thinking about your shoes an in-depth chat with sister bliss dj songwriter one of britain's most iconic and long-lasting female electronic artists i promise to ask her about her shoes as well. But before all that, I do have a worrying statistic for you. The number of women using cocaine and dying from an overdose is on the rise, according to the Office for National Statistics. Those deaths by overdose going up 26%. Why is that?

Ian Hamilton is an associate professor in addiction and mental health at the University of York. We're also joined by Maxine Luckhurst, a peer mentor at National Health and Social Care Provider Turning Point. Maxine successfully completed treatment for cocaine addiction herself. Good morning, Maxine and Ian. Morning. Hello. Ian, first of all, if you would, why is it that we're seeing more and more women in the UK dying from cocaine use? And actually, let's just say straight off, you think the figures actually underestimate the problem?

Yes, I do, sadly, Katja, but I think there's no one single reason. I think what's happened quite often, as you find in health, is that a number of things have constellated at once. So the first thing to mention is that purity of cocaine has gone up in recent years and the price has remained stable. So if this wasn't an illicit product, you'd say that you're getting much better value because you're getting something that's far stronger, but you're paying less for it. And of course, that has its own risks, as perhaps some may see benefits as well. But I think the other thing that's pretty critical here is the way that the treatment and support has been stripped away for people with issues to do with drugs. And for women in particular, we know that women have a real

problem accessing treatment in the UK that there are something like seven times as many men in treatment as women so walking into a treatment centre when you're feeling very vulnerable you're probably at your lowest is not going to be easy when you're faced with a waiting room full of men so I think the cuts and really savage cuts they've been to treatment have um made that all the much harder for women to access support even if they they reach out and um try and get that support okay and we'll come back to quite a few of those issues you mentioned there with with with maxine in just a moment um in you know you you say that when we talk about uh the use of of powder cocaine that we have to get rid of this idea that it's sort of a middle class uh quote unquote obviously

i don't mean that glamour drug you know associated with clubbing and partying and all the rest of it um women's use of the drug differs from men it does and the consequences differ as well so you know in the past I think we certainly people of my generation would have associated cocaine maybe back in the 80s and 90s as something that you know yuppies used or that it was a party type drug but because as I say the price has in essence come down relative to income and it's a much purer drug and there are no barriers to use now so that's why we're seeing again looking at the ONS data you know the highest number of deaths were recorded in the most deprived areas of the UK so that wouldn't fit with a drug that has an image in the past certainly of being a party drug and something that only the well-off

use I mean I think people of all classes use it. I'm not trying to single out particular groups. I think that's the way cocaine use is in the country at the moment. It's something that's used by everyone. Everyone can afford to use it. But clearly some people are paying the ultimate price. And unfortunately those paying the ultimate price seem to be from the poorest backgrounds in the UK. So women from the most socially deprived areas in the UK,

mostly in the North East, are paying with their lives. So, you know, it's one thing to, as politicians do, to keep repeating this misnomer that the middle classes are responsible for violence because they use cocaine, which is utter nonsense, and to ignore the fact that women are dying because they use cocaine, which is utter nonsense. And to ignore the fact that women are dying because they can't access treatment. Maxine, Ian's talking about paying the ultimate price. You know, we're talking here also about the rising number of women who are dying from overdoses. But another massive price that addicts have to pay is losing access to their children

and that did happen to you for a certain amount of time didn't it why and how did you start using cocaine um sure i mean i lost my um sister in january um the second 2016 and I think it started from there and the depression not looking not seeking to get counselling or any help for anything and like I said before I'm a very proud person so I kind of went in on myself and when the actual clubbing started and you know you kind of meet these people and new people around in the clubs and that, and you get introduced to it. And I think that's how it all came about. And I think you don't realise that in the long run, you're going to get addicted to it. And, you know, you don't actually realise the effects and the harm that it can do to your body. Instead, you think, this has took all my feelings away,

all my problems away. This is what I need to carry on with my life. But instead, it just makes your life a lot worse. Like you say, I lost my children. And you end up being blind. You know, you could have your whole family in front of you pleading for you to stop and you know you're blind you're blind to even a grape because you're just thinking about your

next bag well you know maxine you have battled through it um you're clean you you do have your children back and you are training you've just finished your training to become a mentor at turning point um now you you say how you use cocaine as self-medication for depression. That's the kind of stories we're hearing from women, isn't it? For depression, actually to help with the housework, to help with children's chores. This is way, way, way away, as Ian was saying, from this image that powder cocaine had as a partying drug. So do you frequently hear these kinds of stories? Yeah. I mean, I think it's used a lot for energy.

I think that's the main, it's used for energy. It certainly did with me. I needed that to get out of bed and to do my household and everything else in my life. It isn't just a party in effect. It is for you to stand up and do what you need to do. And Ian mentioned, Maxine, that about some of the barriers to actually getting treatment, one of which being that treatment centres are often very male dominated. Is that what you found or how did you?

When I first went into treatment, yeah, it was very, there was a lot more men than there was women. And I wasn't introduced to the women's group until at least six, seven months into the treatment so um it was kind of you know intimidating to you know because you also have that fear of bumping into somebody that you've parted with in the past and kind of that fear you know owing money or anything like that you have that fear and you're vulnerable you know you're on your own and you've just meet you've just met these professionals and you don't know what's going to happen you know when you walk out of that door when you're on the public street you actually don't know what's going to happen when you see all the other clients there of course and you and you're you're feeling extremely vulnerable yeah ian you mentioned

earlier you know cuts um government cuts local, local authority cuts in helping to treat addiction. What do you want the government to do? Obviously, we have years behind us, of course, of austerity measures. Well, I think clearly the government has got a role in this. You know, to see cuts to drug treatment in some of the most, you know, deprived areas, to me is perverse, you know, because those are the areas that we clearly know have the greatest need. So, I mean, it's almost boring, isn't it, to say, you know, but it is absolutely right. The government needs to invest in drug treatment and reverse the cuts it's made. I think, Katja, I'd make a wider appeal, though,

because I think the reason the government does this is because they think nobody cares. You know, it's like prisons. It's like other groups who I think the government feels it's got a kind of free ticket to just get away with making really savage cuts because nobody's going to protest. So I'd make a wider appeal. And I think we need to,

what Maxine's outlined really eloquently is we sometimes are guilty, I think, of thinking people get into problems with drugs because they've made the wrong choice. And therefore, all they've got to do is stop using drugs. And of course, what Maxine has rightly portrayed is that sometimes your choice in life is pretty limited and unless we can tune into that and understand the very limited choice some women have and quite often their only choice is to use a drug to feel better to numb trauma or just to survive now I think if we all understood that and got closer to empathising, that would, in turn, I think, spurn a kind of more positive approach to people who do end up with problems and women in particular. You know, I think there is stigma for men and women using drugs, but there seems to be a special place in hell for women, particularly who use drugs because of all the associations with motherhood, etc. So that would be my appeal. I think this is something we can all do something about. And Maxine, just briefly, I mean, obviously, massive congratulations for

managing to turn your life around and not only that, but wanting to to help others by becoming a peer mentor. What what advice do you have for women struggling with cocaine addiction? What what could you say to them? My first, I would say to seek help. If if you're a mother to seek help to social services, because I think that was my mistake was not actually opening up to anybody about my addiction and keeping it in for so long keeping it secret um in the long run it got really really worse and I think um a lot of lot of women I mean I certainly still feel labelled and I think I'll always feel labelled but that's just the society today but my first advice would be to seek help and even though it's the scariest hardest thing you know to even imagine it will be the best thing in the long run. Thank you so much Maxine

Luckhurst for your honesty and for being with us on the programme and Ian Hamilton as well. Thank you. We're often talking these days, aren't we, about how the COVID-19 crisis has hit the entertainment industry hard, so theatres and concert venues, but what of the UK's normally vibrant club scene? Well, we're joined now by someone who knows it well, Sister Bliss, DJ, songwriter, one of Britain's most iconic and long-lasting female electronic artists, perhaps best known as a member of the British electronic band Faithless. Sister Bliss joins me now on the line. Good morning to you. Morning. Hi. Hello. And first of all, congratulations, because you've got a brand new album out, All Blessed. It's your first for 10 years. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, it's been a little bit of a while. We did put out a remix album of our greatest hits in 2015 called 2.0. It was a kind of, you know, play on it being 20 years. And it did really well, went to number one. And we did quite a bit of touring off the back of that and it was just amazing how much love there was still for Faithless out there. So it kind of reinvigorated us and made us realise there's definitely an audience for our kind of music, which is, you know, clubby at times, but it kind of goes all over the place genre-wise

and it's also music with a message. You know, the lyrics have a real consciousness behind them I'd love just to hear because I want to talk about that consciousness behind behind the lyrics let's just let's just give our listeners a taste um this is a track on the album called I Need Someone I used to think that I knew you well And I see you stand as the bottle fell You come in pieces half of the time We'd glue this together if we could rewind Now that track features the poet Caleb Femi. He was named the first Young People's Laureate for London back in 2016.

I mean, poetry seems a real inspiration on this album. Yeah, definitely. And I think that comes from the beginning of Faithless when we met Maxi who has been our front man for the last 20 odd years and he set the bar really high with his lyrical style and you know it isn't exactly rap you know he sees himself as a hip-hop head but absolutely his style is poetic so I felt that we really wanted to honour that on this record yn gwbl, mae'r stil ei fod yn poedig. Felly roeddwn i'n teimlo bod ni wir eisiau honno ar y record hwn ac yna'r lle rydyn ni'n mynd i edrych ar gydweithgareddau. A Caleb Femi, mae'n dweud wrth fy mod i, mae ganddo llyfr yn dod, sy'n ddiddorol i mi ddarllen,

yn enwedig Paul. Felly mae'n artist mawr, â llyfrau gwych hefyd, oherwydd mae'r llyfrau yn arwain ac mae'r ffordd rydyn ni'n eu llyfrau mewn a chanolbwyntio'r cerdd artist and with a beautiful voice as well because the voices are instruments and the way we weave them in and out of the music gives it its you know particular flavour but yeah we managed to work with some really intelligent thoughtful fresh young artists also another artist from the spoken word poetry scene Sully Breaks is on the album as well whose voice we absolutely love and I think he brings the kind of faith to Faithless very much as Maxie did. Oh, that's lovely.

I love the idea of bringing faith to Faithless. I think it's interesting because you, you know, working with younger artists as well, I mean, you were actually classically trained, even though you're known for electronic music. And you've said that you're concerned that there's not enough emphasis or value placed on music anymore in schools. Yeah I think it's pot luck whether you get music lessons

in any part of the curriculum or not sometimes it's very much up to the individual school it seems to have been sidelined as we can see there's a bigger picture here with what's happening with government grants for the arts and, what can I say, the lack of respect for the performing arts industry as a whole. And an understanding of what it brings to this country, you know, economically and spiritually and socially. It's so important. And I think right from school age, children are not taught musical instruments as a matter of course. As I say, it's very random as to whether the school can even afford instruments or instrument lessons. Budgets have been squeezed. It's not a pretty sight. And therefore, you're depriving children of something that brings huge joy, social connection, and ultimately is a viable job there's so many jobs associated with music even if you don't become a musician behind the scenes the technicians the sound engineers the monitor engineers lighting designers

you know what can I say I did do classical music at school but I never practiced hard enough so I always knew I wasn't going to be a professional musician but that was in the classical world where I think the standard is possibly higher than in a in-house music but you know I was very blessed I did play a lot of instruments not any of them particularly well though. And how did you get into electronic music I think the passion did it start at home? Yeah it certainly did my dad was a gadget aficionado and also a very talented jazz musician and he always loved having the latest keyboards in the house so I grew up with a piano in the house which again was a huge privilege but he also had some very early synthesizers, one of which you could hear

the taxi drivers coming in as soon as you switched it on you put a flexi disc in the front and so all of north london's cabbies would be uh rippling through the back of it strangely i've no idea what the crazy frequencies in there um so i was very lucky i had instruments to muck about on at home and um then i was a child of the 80s and 80s electronic music somehow spoke to me. Anything that sounds like it comes from another world in the future, that's what floats my boat. Well, did you find it challenging, though, as your boat was being floated? Because you've mentioned yourself many times, I think, electronic music, DJing, you said they're very male-dominating industries. Do you think that's affected your career? I mean, you've been phenomenally successful. Would you say it's affected how you're perceived in the industry?

Possibly. I do know for a fact that I certainly earned less than certain male counterparts in the DJ world, even when I had globally successful records riding high in the charts. You don't really get to know these things. You know, there's a capacity there about wages and earnings as people already know within the bbc for example in lots of different environments but particularly in the world of show business uh people keep those that kind of information quite close to their chest but you know in the main i feel i've had to work you know twice as hard to to be recognized maybe um you know particularly if i'm traveling the clubs up and down as i used to right the way through the 90s and people go oh she can really mix as if they they were sort of surprised that you know i i you know was was i had good dj technique um so i think there was definitely a bit of sexism there but i think on a personal level

i've been really lucky i think people have been very respectful and you could also say I did come through in a time where there were very few female DJs and producers and I think the more visible we are the more it encourages the next generation and now I do know that the industry is also taking a long hard look at itself well it was up until covid you know about representation and festival lineups being very male dominated and there's been a lot more forums to talk about that now but you know we're an industry of freelancers often and that's where i think the division comes and the weakness if we can speak together with one voice we can lobby for our industry and for each other and for different issues of diversity and so on.

And the clubbing culture is having to battle to survive COVID-19. I mean, there are some venues that that have become very creative with with the restrictions. But I just wanted to say quickly, because you have been so creative throughout your career, you say you've had to work double as hard but 15 million albums worldwide songwriter dj podcaster your music has been used on films and and video games but i think it's interesting you you say you feel the pressure of expectation uh on the album do you this new one do you doubt yourself oh all the time i mean you know to the world, it looks like a rip roaring success any which way. But it comes with a lot of personal struggle. And maybe that is part of the artistic mindset.

Is it ever good enough? Is anybody listening? Is anybody out there? And for me, a lot of the affirmation comes from performance. And of course, we've been unable to do that. This is the first time in 20 years I've put out a record and I haven't performed. I lost every single gig over the summer and into the new year. It's very hard to predict whether we'll ever tour again at this rate. So not to be negative about it, but yeah, absolutely. The loudest critics inside my own head, but performance is where it makes sense and i was speaking there to sister bliss thank you for all of the emails and messages you've been uh sending us on sister bliss uh we

have been contacted by joanna who says that music is vital in education and all of our lives and of course we spoke a lot today about uh and their startups, how some are doing extremely well, despite or even because of COVID-19. Listen to this message. I run an online eco and zero waste store, thecontentedcompany.com. I've been growing through COVID, sales up 200% on last year. I'm in a fantastic group of other women running their own small businesses and we all support each other through everything. They're invaluable. Oh, we do love a bit of upbeat these days as well.

So thank you for getting that message in. We also have appealed to you to send in photos of three pairs of shoes and tell us a bit about the stories behind them. Carmen says, one of my favorite items of footwear are my mum's espadrilles that she used to wear dancing the Catalan dance Sardanas. I have them hanging on the unit in my dining room to remind me to keep dancing while I still can. They have such meaning on so many levels and my memories of seeing my mum dance, dancing with her

and my dad, the music, the energy, the people, the culture, all of this is part of me. I met my partner dancing and it's something we now share. Do keep sending us in your photos and stories about three pairs of shoes here on Woman's Hour. We're going to make a whole series. A new podcast from BBC Radio 4, Children of the Stones. The village is the sort of place people get murdered in in old TV shows. A village surrounded by an ancient stone circle. The stones are thirsty. A village with an impossible secret.

The stones are changing people. I look them straight in the eye and I see what's there. Witches. Bliss. Subscribe to Children of the Stones on BBC Sounds. She's coming. Happy day. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig know it was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain

from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.