Born in Aleppo, Syria, to an Armenian family, Korkejian spent most of her first ten years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Her childhood included living through the Gulf War, taking a gas mask to school and sleeping with her family on mattresses in a hallway away from the windows. Yet Korkejian remembers those years not simply for the danger around her, but for how protected she felt by her parents.
When she was ten, Korkejian's family won the green card lottery and moved to the United States, first to the Boston area and eventually to Houston. After Korkejian left home for college, her parents eventually returned to Riyadh, while she continued moving around before settling in Los Angeles. There, she worked editing dialogue for film and began writing songs in her apartment overlooking Sunset Boulevard. Inspired in part by the homemade early ’70s recordings of German singer songwriter Sibylle Baier, she approached producer Gus Seyffert about recording some of her songs to tape. Those sessions eventually became Bedouine’s wonderful self titled debut album in 2017. Seyffert has remained her producer and collaborator ever since, and the two eventually married.
In 2019, Korkejian returned to Saudi Arabia to visit her parents as her father was preparing to retire and they were getting ready to move to Armenia. When she returned to Los Angeles, she was filled with a sadness she had difficulty understanding. Saudi Arabia had been the first place she considered home, and she began writing about what it meant to lose that connection.
“I feel like most of me is made up of my childhood, and my adulthood is this thin layer on top.” -Bedouine
As Korkejian has gotten older, she has also become increasingly interested in her parents’ and grandparents’ experiences and in what it means to grow up between different cultures. On her new album, Neon Summer Skin, Korkejian reaches back into her childhood and her complicated relationship with the idea of home, writing about family, immigration, loss, and the places we continue to think of as home long after we have left them.
There is something particularly beautiful about hearing her explore those memories through music, especially given her full embrace of an analog approach to recording. There is such a lush quality to the album, with a rounded out sound that leans heavily into the analog warmth of early ’70s albums by artists like Janis Ian and Carole King. It gives her songs a richness that makes them feel as though they too come from another time.
I’ve always liked Bedouine, but this album has connected with me in a way that her previous ones haven't. It's by far my favorite and one that I hope gets the attention it deserves.
.jpeg)
0 Comments