Blevin Blectum describes her music as “stuff that I want
to hear that I haven’t heard before.” Anyone
encountering her music for the first time can rest assured of one
thing: her sparse, dark though strangely warm compositions are
unlike most things anyone has heard before.
Blectum, who will perform Thursday at The Derby, has gained
recognition in the intelligent dance music community for her work
as half of the Oakland duo Blectum from Blechdom. She will perform
more recent solo material and material with her new group, Sagan,
which features Matmos alum Jay Doerck, aka Lesser. Video artist
Ryan Junell will appear with both Blectum and Sagan, showcasing
live video manipulation that ties together closely with the
music.
“The video component adds to the performance aspect of the
shows,” said Blectum, whose only equipment on stage is her
laptop and some samplers.
“The only instrument I play reasonably well is the violin
and I hate the way that looks on stage,” she said.
Though it all ends up in the Powerbook onstage, Blectum culls
material from a diverse selection of sources.
“(My music) is mostly sample based: everything from vinyl
to field recordings to electronic toys. I find the sounds I want to
use as I’m editing,” she said. “My mom was
working at a bird rescue shelter in Massachusetts. We visited it
and recorded all the sounds inside to use later.”
Blectum began her musical career as a DJ in the early
’90s. It wasn’t long before she began fulfilling her
true ambition, producing her own tracks.
Since beginning her post-Blectum from Blechdom projects Blectum
has found herself inspired as much by non-musical sources as
musical ones.
“I’ve been listening to (Anticon Records hip-hop
group) Themselves, but I’ve also been watching a lot of
films.”
Specifically, she says, her group Sagan was inspired by Carl
Sagan’s television series “Cosmos.”
“We wanted to make a loose narrative about the world and
different creatures interacting,” she said.
While not usually serving a specifically narrative function on
its own, Blectum says her music in conjunction with Junell’s
video accompaniment can be used to tell a story.
“One of our pieces is a story about getting parking
tickets in San Francisco and about traffic and meter maids. Others
are more vaguely narrative,” she said.
Whatever its purpose, Blevin Blectum’s music is forging
new paths, combining her brand of innovative musical abstraction
with visual accompaniment to create an unheard of experience.
Blevin Blectum performs at The Derby tomorrow with Wobbly and
Daedelus. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $9.