Musical artist
Blevin Blectum (born Bevin Kelley) is an American electronic musician and multimedia composer. She is celebrated as an "icon of deviant and cerebral electronic music".[1]
Early life and education
She was born Bevin Kelley in 1971.[2][3] Her younger brother is musician Kelley Polar[4] and her cousin is musician Rayna Russom. Blectum studied the violin during her youth.
At Oberlin College she began making electronic music at the WOBC-FM studios. At Mills College, she partnered with Kevin Blechdom to form Blectum from Blechdom, an electronica and performance art duo.[5] In 2001, Blectum from Blechdom won an Award of Distinction for digital music at the Prix Ars Electronica.[6]
In May 2014, she graduated with a PhD in Computer Music and Multimedia from Brown University's Multimedia and Electronic Music Experiments (MEME) department. Her dissertation committee included writer Brian Evenson and playwright Erik Ehn.[7] While at Brown University she created sound and music for several of playwright Theo Goodell's works.
Career
Blectum has released many solo albums, and released a CD/DVD Unseen Forces on Matmos's Vague Terrain label as part of multimedia band Sagan with J Lesser, video producer Ryan Junell, and Wobbly.[8] In 1998 she worked at Orban testing radio processing units, in 1999 worked at Thomas Dolby's Headspace and Beatnik Inc. as a beta-tester, and in 2000 to 2004 worked as a sound designer at LeapFrog Enterprises and several smaller sound design companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.
She has commonly worked with the software Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Max/MSP/Jitter, Apogee Duet.[2]
An avid bird enthusiast, Blectum quit music for several years and worked as a registered veterinary technician at the Medical Center for Birds in Northern California,[9] before moving to Providence, Rhode Island in 2007.[3]
In 2013, she co-founded theatrical-electro-acoustic-chamber-ensemble The Traveling Bubble Ensemble with Michael Kelley, Elise Kuder, and Marjorie Gere.
In 2011 she was artist-in-residence at WORM, a Rotterdam-based institute for avant-garde music and art.
Her fifth solo LP/CD, Emblem Album, was released on Aagoo records on December 5, 2013.
In November 2017 she released All Day I Dream About Singularity (vinyl and download) under the name Synopterus, on Darling Dada (Paris).
Late 2020 saw the release of a remix track + video, for composer Kirsten Volness's album 'River Rising'. Music by Blevin Blectum, video by Alex P Dupuis.
In 2021 she resides in Seattle, working by day as Senior UX Sound Designer for Echo Alexa Devices, and continues to perform and release music. A new solo record as well as Blectum from Blechdom ('Deep Bone') and Sagan ('Anti-Ark' on the Hausu label) albums will be released later this year.
Discography
Year
|
Title
|
Artist(s)
|
Label
|
Notes
|
1998
|
Pirate Planets
|
as D84 (Blevin Blectum)
|
Phthalo Records, Los Angeles, California
|
|
2002
|
Talon Slalom
|
Blevin Blectum
|
Deluxe Records, Berkeley, California
|
[10] The artwork and video by Ryan Junell.
|
2004
|
Magic Maple
|
Blevin Blectum
|
Praemedia, San Francisco, California
|
|
2008
|
Gular Flutter
|
Blevin Blectum
|
Aagoo, Brooklyn, New York
|
The artwork by China Miéville, video by Ryan Junell.
|
2013
|
Emblem Album
|
Blevin Blectum
|
Aagoo, Brooklyn, New York
|
|
2014
|
Irradiance
|
Blevin Blectum
|
Estuary Ltd., Providence, Rhode Island
|
|
2017
|
All Day I Dream About Singularity
|
as Synopterus (Blevin Blectum)
|
Darling Dada, Paris
|
http://www.darlingdada.com/en/album/all-day-i-dream-about-singularity
|
2020
|
Nocturne (Psaltriparus minimus Mix)
|
Music, Blevin Blectum, Video, Alex Dupuis
|
Remix for Kirsten Volness' album 'River Rising'
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu55wI7cH2w
|
References
External links