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Blevin Blectum

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Blevin Blectum
Blevin Blectum at the Mills College concert in 1999.
Blevin Blectum at the Mills College concert in 1999.
Background information
Birth nameBevin Kelley
Also known asD84, Synopterus
Born1971 (age 52–53)
GenresElectronic
Years active1998 – present
Labels
Member ofBlectum from Blechdom
Formerly of
Websitehttp://www.blevinblectum.com/

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] The pioneering musician and composer otherwise known as Bevin Kelley has been active in the US electronic avant garde since the 1990s. A classically trained science fiction enthusiast with an enviable academic record, she’s best known as one half of irreverent rhythmic glitch duo Blectum From Blechdom and multimedia band Sagan with J Lesser, Ryan Junell and Wobbly.[2]

Early life and education

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She was born Bevin Kelley in 1971.[3][4] Her younger brother is musician Kelley Polar[5] 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.[6] In 2001, Blectum from Blechdom won an Award of Distinction for digital music at the Prix Ars Electronica.[7]

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.[8] While at Brown University she created sound and music for several of playwright Theo Goodell's works.

Career

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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.[9] 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.[3]

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,[10] before moving to Providence, Rhode Island in 2007.[4]

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.

On 2023's OMNII, "Kelley has tempered her zanier inclinations and focused on the most sonorous and wonder-filled tones and otherworldly atmospheres of her career. It's a shame that Cosmos went off the air, as these tracks would make for an ideal soundtrack."[11]

Multitudes Of Venom is Kelley’s sixth album released under her Blevin Blectum alias, the second to drop on equally eccentric Los Angeles label Deathbomb Arc. Multitudes Of Venom "features a live recording of a performance on Stanford’s KZSU radio, billed as a presentation of music from 2023’s Omnii, but you wouldn’t know from listening to it. Instead, Multitudes Of Venom features a heady collision of samples, signals and loops that speed and scramble across a universe of sonic possibility."[12]

Discography

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Blevin Blectum

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with Blectum from Blechdom

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with Sagan

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as D84

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as Synopterus

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References

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  1. ^ Liability, Fabien. "Chronicle: Blevin Blectum: Emblem Album". Liability. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  2. ^ Kretowicz, Steph (October 2024). "Electronics by Steph Kretowicz: Blevin Blectum Multitudes of Venom". The Wire. No. 488. pp. 64–65 – via Exact Editions (subscription required).
  3. ^ a b "herstory of electronic music". NerdGirls. 2014. Retrieved 2019-11-27.
  4. ^ a b Rodgers, Tara (2010). Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound. Duke University Press. pp. 235–242. ISBN 9780822394150 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ Sherburne, Philip (2005-11-22). "Record Review: Kelley Polar Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 2008-01-18. Retrieved 2019-11-26.
  6. ^ Suarez, Jessica (22 January 2006). "Pitchfork Interviews: Kevin Blechdom". Pitchfork. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  7. ^ "Blevin Blectum: Gular Flutter". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2019-11-27.
  8. ^ Kelley, Bevin L. (2014). Terms of Addition: Compositions and Strategies for Electro-Acoustic Chamber Ensemble (Thesis). Brown University. doi:10.7301/Z0610XQV.
  9. ^ Golden, Barbara. "Conversations at the Crack o Dawn". Canadian Electroacoustic Community. KPFA 94.1 FM. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  10. ^ Segal, Dave. "Having Birds Is "Like Living with Perpetually 4-Year-Old Dinosaurs"". The Stranger. Retrieved 2019-11-27.
  11. ^ Segal, Dave (July 7, 2023). "Blevin Blectum's Plutonian Techno-Jazz". The Stranger. Retrieved November 19, 2024.
  12. ^ Kretowicz, Steph (October 2024). "Electronics by Steph Kretowicz: Blevin Blectum Multitudes of Venom". The Wire. No. 488. pp. 64–65 – via Exact Editions (subscription required).
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