
Femme Fest
featuring Rose Hotel, Hrlum & The Renaissance, She Returns From War, LaFaye, Babe Club, & Pip the Pansy
DOORS: 3 PM / SHOW: 4 PM
$22 ADV | $25 DOS

About Femme Fest
Femme Fest is a music festival currated by Music Farm, 9 To 5 Magazine, and Sharehouse to celebrate and provide exclusive space to women and non-binary musicians. It is a privilege and an honor to present a live showcase of diverse talent brought to you by the very hands of — you guessed it — LEMME HEAR YOU SAY: LADIES!
Why a show of only women-fronted performers? Believe it or not, even today there are still current issues that lay within the music industry that can be traced back to societal standards and expectations dated over 400 years ago. The female presence in the music industry has too often been judged by looks rather than by talent and skill. Women often experience sexism where people question their abilities, assume their instrumental roles, and expect men to play better — all of which simply continues conventional gender roles.
We encourage all ages, all genders and identities to join in and celebrate an entire day dedicated to women in the music industry.
The festival runs from 4pm to 11pm. The bands will be performing inside the Music Farm. We will also have 20+ female vendors set up all along the alley by the Music Farm next to Sharehouse (full list of vendors TBA in the coming weeks). Finally, Sharehouse will have female DJs spinning all night long to keep the party going.
About Hrlum & The Renaissance
Charleston-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Harlem Farr exudes a retro chic persona when she takes the stage. The 23-year-old musician has been on a lifelong music quest that started with playing piano by ear at 6 years old. With a foundation in fine arts, Harlem earned her bachelor’s of arts in music theory/composition and Spanish from College of Charleston. She’s become proficient in guitar and electric bass along her journey, which has provided space for her experimental vocal prowess to flourish. Today Harlem stands as a dynamic artist, reflecting cosmic dreaminess and evoking harmonious experiences with her musicianship. Her classic training has given her the freedom to explore sounds across endless contextualizations as she continues to pen original music.
About Pip The Pansy
About Babe Club
Charleston-based Babe Club makes cool-toned synth pop. The band is the brainchild of Jenna Desmond and Corey Campbell: the two met in College, and quickly became collaborators. After graduating, Desmond and Campbell joined the Americana act Susto. After a few years playing huge stages and major festivals all over the country, they departed that band and began to carve out their own sound. Ultimately landing on something dreamy and melancholic. Babe Club’s latest single “That Feeling,” has its origins in the pandemic. Desmond was unemployed for six months, and suddenly had all the free time in the world to sit around and feel anxious about her future. She felt discouraged about releasing new music. “‘That Feeling’ is about adulthood induced depression,” she says, “When you land in it, realize you’re all alone, and you’re not naive anymore.
About LaFaye
The Atlanta born artist brings a show full of high energy, a sultry yet eclectic energy and high-powered feels to grasp and keep the attention of even the least expected.
A funky, melodic, multifaceted fusion of Rock-Soul can be heard in various presentations, as she pulls from iconic musical influences such as Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Al Green, Fantasia, Prince, & Nina Simone just to name a few.
LaFaye’s greatest and most memorable achievements include serving in the US Army as a Vocalist and traveling the world opening for artists such as LYFE Jennings, Keke Wyatt, Sunshine Anderson and of course performing throughout the Southeast and Coastal Region & across the country, building her own well respected musical brand and legacy.
LaFaye stives to create a timeless musical catalog that all people of all ages & walks of life can genuinely relate to, enjoy, and sing to for years to come.
LaFaye’s ultimate goal is to “Make the world dance!”
About Rose Hotel
I have always been interested in what’s lost in translation. In novels, I wonder what essential character of the author’s voice I’m missing when reading their texts filtered into English. In film, what dubiously appropriate words get stuffed into the mouths of actors to match the vowel shape rather than the sharpness of the line. But most of all in the expression of human experience, from human to human, the limits of language always somewhat curbing our ability to truly peer into the interior world of a loved one. In the forthcoming EP, The House That We Knew, from Atlanta based musician Jordan Reynold’s project Rose Hotel, we’re offered meditations on the relationship between these inner and outer worlds.
Although Rose Hotel does sometimes consist of a full band, a recurring roster of musicians who contributed to 2019’s rousing, psych folk debut full length I Will Only Come When It’s A Yes, the thread that holds the project together is undeniably Reynolds – her voice, her songwriting, her visions, and her world. In January of 2019, before the release of her first full length album, Reynolds quietly released an EP of four songs called Conversations, produced by Graham Tavel in his home studio. The intimacy and warmth of the arrangements make you feel as if you were in the living room with Reynolds as she spoke on the phone, perhaps turning to mouth to you with her hand over the receiver, sorry, I’ll be with you in a minute. On Conversations, Reynolds seems to be in dialogue with lovers, friends. She describes small, sweet moments, like coffee at the breakfast table: “You take your eggs the same way as I do, you always like things easy”.
Similarly to Conversations, The House That We Knew was produced again by Tavel and recorded without the full band. A return to form, as if the conversations between Reynolds and her listeners never really ended, only expanded. Fitting then, that the opening track should be titled “Expansion”. Reynold’s lyrical scope has broadened here, along with the production which, while still minimal and delicate, feels darker, moodier, more grown. Piano and strings creep in at just the right moment, in a way that never feels overly embellished, with vocalizations that are emotional yet refined.
On Expansion, Reynolds sings: “Silence isn’t just absence, silence is penance for doing you harm”. It’s a beautiful line, and a weighty way to classify introspection. She moves on from internal contemplation to After, which brings her external concerns into view – the physical landscape changing, climate catastrophe on the horizon. On Omina, she sings “Ice is melting, but I’m all thumbs”, a reference no doubt to our constant, helpless scrolling as the world burns around us. And on Space, the inner and outer realms seem to battle – “I’ve been trying to function, in this cloud that I’m in every day”, the double meaning of “cloud” unmistakable in the recognition that the digital extensions of ourselves are contributing to our perpetual mental haze.
THTWK closes with a dreamy, blissed out and synth laden cover of the Bobbie Gentry song Courtyard, a fitting nod to a classic Americana artist who paved the way for musicians like Reynolds to run the gamut of what it means to be a femme singer songwriter who envision and produce their own material. Ending the EP with Courtyard feels like a wistful placement: not only is it sonically a palate cleanser, the fantasy of the courtyard, marble fountain, and bountiful garden feel like the dream of someone tired of negotiating with liminal space. “Patterns on a courtyard floor, illusions of all I’m living for”. Courtyard closes out the EP with an ode to a dream – now that the house we knew has burned down, what will our future home look like? What physical environment will be left for us? Where will we rest? Here, the synthetic and organic are married perfectly – Reynolds’ timeless voice swirling above the bright, calm pads – and this union brings the themes of the album home. A home with a clear, sparkling pool.
And while we’ll never know exactly what may have been lost in translation, Reynolds transmits her world to her listeners faithfully – with honesty, care, and grace.
– Grace Bellury
COVID-19 Policy
Based on the latest local guidelines, attendees are no longer required to provide proof of negative COVID-19 test AND/OR vaccination for entry into this event. Attendees are also not required to wear a mask. Be sure to check your venue website for the latest updates and guidelines as entry requirements are subject to change.
Music Farm
32 Ann Street
Charleston, South Carolina, 29403
https://www.musicfarm.com/