Compiled by In the Key, this directory is designed to help you discover new music from female, trans and non-binary electronic music producers. Organised alphabetically and by genre, the details provided are taken from the artists’ public profiles – ItK is impartial and is not endorsing, or affiliated with anyone listed here. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so please feel free to suggest producers we may have missed, and please help us keep the Directory current by letting us know of any broken links, or incorrect information.
Cailín
Producer based in Waterford, Ireland.
Cailín’s debut 12″ ‘Phantom Love Affair’ was released on AllCIty Records offshoot Gurriers – 4 tracks of raw, machine fuelled techno which has received support from Surgeon, Dave Clarke, Ben Sims, Perc & others. This was soon followed by a VA release on Ben Sim’s Symbolism imprint. 2022 will see Cailín release a further EP, 2 VAs and 3 remixes.
D. Tiffany
Producer based in Canada.
Sophie Sweetland, known professionally as D. Tiffany, is a Canadian DJ and electronic musician. Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, Sweetland is known for her electronic music and for founding the underground label Planet Euphorique. She is also known for her solo and collaborative EPs and albums with artists including Roza Terenzi and Nite Fleit.
Sophie Sweetland’s body of work feels dreamlike in its essence—there’s a hazy, imperceptible logic holding everything together. From the buzzing warm pads and spliced samples of early D. Tiffany, to the mellow breakbeat revivalism of DJ Zozi to the fractured IDM of Ambien Baby—Sweetland’s focus is always shifting between comfort and dissonance, nostalgic euphoria and intriguing newness.
FAUZIA
Producer based in the UK.
Khiva
Producer based in Los Angeles, USA.
Seeing a rapidly expanding tour schedule since the release of her debut EP in 2018, she has continued to push boundaries and make powerful impressions at some of bass music’s top events across the map, delivering standout sets at festivals such as Shambhala Music Festival (CA), Outlook Festival (EU), and Northern Bass (NZ). Generating undeniably impactful waves with her latest productions and compelling performances, including debuting her live vocal performance in 2019, her one of a kind sound continues to evolve and mark Khiva as a force to be reckoned with.
Kittin
Producer based in Paris, France.
Caroline Hervé (born 1973), known professionally as Miss Kittin, is a French electronic music producer, DJ, singer, and songwriter. Since rising to prominence in 1998 for her singles “1982” and “Frank Sinatra” with The Hacker, she has worked with other musicians such as Chicks on Speed, Felix da Housecat and Golden Boy. She released her debut solo album I Com in 2004, a second, BatBox, in 2008, and a third, Calling from the Stars, in 2013. She achieved international popularity with the singles “Rippin Kittin” and “Silver Screen Shower Scene”.
Laurel Halo
Producer based in Berlin, Germany.
Electronic producer from Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. She also released more rhythm-focused music under the alias King Felix.
Leese
Producer based in Brussels, Belgium.
Leese is an electronic music producer from Brussels. Her artistic approach is to create a fusion between the different musical styles that influence her daily life since several years.Percussion with tribal sounds, a heaviness that we recognize in bass music, shifted and dancing rhythms — this is what qualifies the project of Leese.Sometimes oriental, sometimes cavernous and rhythmic voices will come to melt in this exhilarating mixture. Thanks to her job in the audiovisual industry, Leese also makes her own videos, in which she likes to search for the aesthetics of movement. It’s through dance that she will be able to stage her ideas and illustrate in an honest way the relationship she finds between movement and her music.
Lucy
Producer based in Berlin, Germany.
Lucy is the nom de techno of Italian-born and Berlin-based Luca Mortellaro, one of the genre’s most exciting and ambitious DJ/producers.
Marie Davidson
Producer based in Montreal, Canada.
Michelle Samba
Drifting on oceans of thunderous stillness, carried away by endless currents, whipped up by waves of darkness devouring you until you see the light. The first album from Platoo, a collaboration between Michelle Samba and Phil Mills, has an unrelenting cadence that grabs you and refuses to let go. A distinctive combination of calming soundscapes and highly-charged energy fitting any occasion, from dancing like lost souls in the empty halls of ancient barracks to ecstatically tripping on a distant desert planet.
Nadja Lind
Producer based in Germany.
Nadja Lind (featured by Lucidflow, iAwake Technologies, Kino Yoga, Omstars, Homodea) is highly sought-after developer of healing frequencies, binaural meditation entrainment, anxiety- & stress-release sounds and functional work-out and stretching music. She is also an international dj of electronic music, music label owner and electronic dance music producer.
REZZ
Canadian producer and DJ from Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Shanti Celeste
Producer based in London, UK.
Her career to date has been characterised by a contemporary, U.K. take on the classic Motor City sound. The expansive, emotional visions of the early Techno pioneers are reflected in Celeste’s open take to her craft. Her approach to production has leant her DJing a breath that has earned her a distinct enthusiasm amongst today’s electronic music base. This freedom is reflected on the platforms she shares her craft through – her regular NTS Radio show, and more recently, her label Peach Discs. These outlets provide Shanti with a place to amplify talent she meets, hears and wants to help along the way. Dancing, and the music that gets us there, exists to uplift, and in her life and work, Shanti is the embodiment of an elevated state.
upsammy
Producer based in the Netherlands
https://linktr.ee/thessa.upsammy
Dutch DJ and producer Thessa Torsing, better known as upsammy, makes dreamy, abstract dance tracks that fluidly switch between styles such as electro, techno, and IDM. The Amsterdam-based artist emerged during the late 2010s and earned acclaim for her adventurous DJ sets, which span a wide range of BPMs, and her gliding, spacious productions inspired by nature and science fiction. Following several sought-after EPs, she released her full-length debut, Zoom, in 2020.
Zoë Mc Pherson
Producer based in Germany.
Zoë Mc Pherson is a Berlin based multimedia artist, performer, researcher, sound designer, spatial sound shaper, DJ, curator and founder of SFX label & AV platform.
Described as a “vanguard” by British publication Mixmag and “fearless” by Hyponik, Berlin-based Zoë Mc Pherson is a French-Irish multimedia artist whose practice absorbs elements of performance, sound design, installation art and DJing. Their breathless third album “Pitch Blender” is a tight set of cybernetic dancefloor experiments that flicker between the rave and the art space, and arrives courtesy of SFX, the boundary-pushing A/V-focused label Mc Pherson runs with their long-time collaborator Alessandra Leone.
Since the release of their immersive 2018 debut album “String Figures” and its acclaimed 2020 follow-up “States of Fugue”, Mc Pherson has performed across the world, appearing at Berlin’s CTM Festival, Nyege Nyege in Jinja, Uganda, Freerotation in the UK, Meakusma in Belgium, Madrid’s LEV, Amsterdam’s FIBER festival, Elevate Festival in Graz and Malmö’s Inkonst. They’ve presented spatial sound installations at Berlin’s world-famous MONOM (the world’s first 4DSOUND system), Silent Green amongst others, and work alongside bULt, in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, to invite musicians to perform and hold workshops at a brand new queer-owned club.
A seasoned collaborator, Mc Pherson maintains an ongoing project with renowned French sound artist Jessica Ekomane. The two performed a special project at Berghain’s Halle broadcast by ARTE TV, and their first recording was released on Ostgut Ton’s “Fünfzehn + 1” compilation. On the other end of their creative spectrum, Carbon 96 finds Mc Pherson teaming up with US techno producer and DJ Ciarra Black, and the duo’s effervescent debut “Carbonated” was released on Peder Mannerfelt Produktion earlier this year. Their most recent project however is 3OK, a frenetic project that was conceptualized in Uganda and matches Mc Pherson’s sci-fi sonics with singeli pioneer Jay Mitta’s breakneck beats and Malian veteran DJ Diaki’s unmistakable soundsystem energy.