Suspended in Love: Kevin Blechdom

Posted by: steve | From: July 29, 2005

If you would've told me a few months ago that an album that can easily be described as a somewhat sophmoric baroque electro preset pop opera about love and self help would be my favorite album of the year I would've called you a "Son of a Vadruke" and immediately ordered you out of my very very nice office. Life's funny that way, you know? You're (you meaning me) just sitting there in your dark cherry wood and hard oak office just enjoying a Ruby Red Squirt and then BOOM Kevin Blechdom's Eat Your Heart Out hits you like a ton of bricks. Alright, enough jokes, lets get down to brass dudes. Kevin Blechdom aka Kevy B has a real name like Kristen or something and she lives in Berlin or Tallahasse (this is what it says in her bio, I think it is really Berlin). She was a huge part of the late 90s/early 00s frantic anti IDM/yet still IDM Bay Area music scene. She was part of a band called Blectum from Blechdom with Blevin Blectum. They put out an album called The Messy Jesse Fiesta that became a big deal and won awards at weird electronic music events and the stuffy uptight electronic music dudes got all p.o.'ed because their music was all weird and messy and silly and awesome. So, they became a big deal, but really didn't put much else, and then brokeup. Blevin put out an album in 2002 called Talon Slalom that I really wanted to like at the time because I had heard a lot about Blecdudes, but was really sorta boring and kinda idm-y in ways that B from B had sorta revolted against.

In mid 2003 Kevin Blechdom dropped Bitches Without Britches and it freaked me out. It was maybe the weirdest music I had ever heard, and I liked it, but was a bit resistent. It was just so bizarre. Kevin was singing now and she has this wonderful, vulnerable, and mildly squeaky voice. Banjos met 80s saxophone and twinkly keyboards and brash drum patterns on Bitches Without Britches. The album had so many different styles and tones it was somewhat hard to get a handle of, and the very silly lyrics exacerbated that.

Now, Kevin has just released Eat My Heart Out and it totally addresses any problems I had getting deep in with Kevy B previously. The operatic theme/consistent lyrics about getting over a nagging love and self help through a situation like that are so much more interesting to me than just the raw crass silliness of having sex with aliens and animals like was the previous tendacy, even though some of the lightness and joyous over rhyming remain. Some of the raw novelty and deep irony of her past efforts have been eschewed for a slightly more subtle approach, which might make it harder for some to get into this effort because before it was so painfully obvious that it was a fun goof, now what remains is a more dense emotional product. The dark reality of trying to get over a heavy love is really powerful on Eat My Heart Out and it appropriately doesn't always sound pretty, but just when things get too deep Kevin saves you with a beautiful melody and some positivity, but just when things seem bright and you are over it something drags you back into those familiar easy to fall back on dependent feelings.

In a lot of the writing about Kevin or her albums there are warnings that this music isn't for everybody, but that's just a cop out. It is weird music, and it doesn't sound like things you've heard before, and it takes some getting used to, but almost all rewarding experiences make us take on some sort of challenge, and I don't think that listening to weird music is that hard of a challenge. She is honestly on some "5 years before her time" kinda tryyp. So, as I sit here in my gorgeously decorated office, I find myself mildly humiliating myself by pleading with you dear reader to take a chance and take some time on Kevin Blechdom. I would only humilate myself for The Greatest Band of All Time.

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