The music industry has been hugely male-dominated: the horror stories of slimy male execs and sexual abuse and the pitiful all-male lineups across different scenes. What’s also a massive concern is the lack of women not just onstage and in the boardroom, but in the recording studios. A new podcast, Reversal of the Muse, now hopes to delve into that.

British singer and songwriter Laura Marling has created the new project with the mission to “establish why there is a real lack of female presence in the recording studio, and to discuss whether it makes any difference to the final outcome of the recordings”.

“Without wanting to carry any pre-conceived notions of why it might be”, Marling had spent several months engaging with musicians, producers and music industry people to explore what’s going on in the studios. The first in the series features HAIM, and the second an interview with studio engineer Vanessa Par.

“Reversal Of The Muse began as conversations between friends about female creativity,” she observed. “In reversing the muse it became an experiment. As a small part of the global conversation about women in the arts, it became an obsession. It occurred to me that in ten years of making records I had only come across two female engineers working in studios.

“Starting from my experience of being a woman I began to ask myself what difference it might have made had I had more women around, if any. I wanted to know why progress has been so slow in this area and what effect it would have on music.”

The first two episodes are now live, with more weekly shows forthcoming. Listen to the first, with HAIM, below.