Breaking a four year silence with her strongest album to date, Blevin Blectum's "Rapid Cooling" 12-inch ( a precursor to the full-length ÒGular FlutterÓ CD) confirms her gift for making electronic music that is allergic to cliche. Blectum's new songs throb with swarms of transient surface details, but they never come off as haphazard. Asked about her title, Blevin notes that "Gular fluttering is the pulsation of the upper esophagus in some species of birds in response to heat-stress," an oblique reference from avian anatomy that stems from her recently completed training as a veterinary technician. It's a title that perfectly captures the mysteriously organic shifts that pulsate across this heavily processed music.
On Sife A, "Cygnet" bursts into action, as martial drum rolls and distant horns bend and recombine around keening runs of strings in a manner that cops moves from Middle Eastern music and darkstep jungle but takes them in a wholly other direction (happily, Blevin's background as a classically trained violinist does more hovering than smothering in the midst of such delicate maneuvers). "Foyer Fire" follows, and keeps things bumping with a stomping kick and a lasertag maze of chirping synth patterns. Blevin has said that "99% of my music is about trying to keep your head above water", and that mixture of liquidity, dread and endurance is at the heart of this release. Side B contains the track "Avian Enamel", a remix of Bay Area band Ellul. Threading field recordings and conversation across a lattice of tightly edited rhythm, this tricksy, elastic assemblage provides an an emphatic finale to a work that demonstrates just how personal, brave and autonomous electronic music can still be. Some things are worth waiting for.
- Drew Daniel, 2/16/2008