Blevin Blectum (born Bevin Kelley) is an American

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

ian and multimedia composer. She is celebrated as an "icon of deviant and cerebral electronic music".

Early life and education

She was born Bevin Kelley in 1971. Her younger brother is musician

Kelley Polar Kelley Polar, born Michael Kelley, is an American musician, alternative dance vocalist and music producer. He is based in Sullivan, New Hampshire. Career Originally a classical violist from Providence, Rhode Island, he studied at the Oberlin Co ...

and her cousin is musician

Rayna Russom Rayna Kirilova Terziyska (Bulgarian:Райна Кирилова Терзийска) is a Bulgarian pop-folk singer and singer of traditional music. Rayna was born on 30 September 1981 in Sandanski, Bulgaria. Albums * 2002 "Dimming flame" (Bulga ...

. Blectum studied the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

during her youth. At

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

she began making electronic music at the

WOBC-FM WOBC-FM (91.5 FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to serve Oberlin, Ohio, carrying a mixed freeform and community format. Owned by Oberlin College, the station services Lorain County and western parts of Greater Cleve ...

studios. At

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

, she partnered with

Kevin Blechdom Kevin Blechdom (born Kristin Grace Erickson; 1978 in Florida) is an American experimental electronic musician and performance artist. She is based in Santa Cruz, California. Early life and education Kristin Grace Erickson was born in 1978 in Fl ...

to form Blectum from Blechdom, an electronica and performance art duo. In 2001, Blectum from Blechdom won an Award of Distinction for digital music at the

Prix Ars Electronica The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) ...

. In May 2014, she graduated with a PhD in Computer Music and Multimedia from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

's Multimedia and Electronic Music Experiments (MEME) department. Her dissertation committee included writer

Brian Evenson Brian Evenson (born August 12, 1966) is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson. His fiction is often described as literary minimalism, but also draws i ...

and playwright

Erik Ehn Erik Ehn is an American playwright and director known for proposing the Regional Alternative Theatre movement. The former dean of theater at CalArts, the California Institute of Arts, he is the former head of playwriting and professor of theatre ...

. 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 Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their per ...

's Vague Terrain label as part of multimedia band Sagan with

J Lesser J Lesser is the stage name for Jason Doerck (born December 19, 1970). Between 2003 and 2006 Doerck was a member of the defunct laptop group Sagan, alongside Blevin Blectum, Wobbly, and video artist Ryan Junell. Early years Born and raised arou ...

, video producer Ryan Junell, and

Wobbly The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...

. In 1998 she worked at Orban testing radio processing units, in 1999 worked at

Thomas Dolby Thomas Morgan Robertson (born 14 October 1958), known by the stage name Thomas Dolby, is an English musician, producer, composer, entrepreneur and teacher. Dolby came to prominence in the 1980s, releasing hit singles including "She Blinded Me ...

's Headspace and Beatnik Inc. as a beta-tester, and in 2000 to 2004 worked as a sound designer at

LeapFrog Enterprises LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. (commonly known as LeapFrog) is an educational entertainment and electronics company based in Emeryville, California. LeapFrog designs, develops, and markets technology-based learning products and related content for ...

and several smaller sound design companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has commonly worked with the software

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool f ...

Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-productio ...

, Max/MSP/Jitter, Apogee Duet. An avid

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

enthusiast, Blectum quit music for several years and worked as a registered veterinary technician at the Medical Center for Birds in Northern California, before moving to

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

in 2007. 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 Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

WORM Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...

, 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

References

External links

Official website
*Golden, Barbara. “Conversation with Blevin Blectum.�

(April 2010). Montréal: CEC. {{DEFAULTSORT:Blectum, Blevin Living people American electronic musicians American women in electronic music Mills College alumni Brown University alumni 1971 births 21st-century American women