Bre tht
One local singer has an unlikely onstage accompaniment
HALL had Oates, Simon had Garfunkel, and New York singersongwriter Chloe Temtchine has Steve Martin — in name, at least.
The funnyman’s moniker is one Temtchine has borrowed for her oxygen tank (“I thought it fit,” she says). Ever since she was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension three years ago, she has to carry it everywhere. But instead of it being her cross to bear, Temtchine has woven it into her life by giving it a name and even dressing it — sometimes “Steve Martin” dons a wig, other times a tie.
“A couple of years ago, I was at a Vanity Fair party and I met the real Steve Martin,” she tells The Post. “He said he was honored to be named after a tank!”
It’s just one of the ways Temtchine, who plays Thursday at the Window at 125 in Midtown (the show is inviteonly, but you can contact Temtchine through her Web site for an invite), has changed her life. The 33-yearold grew up on the Upper East Side and started singing when she was 6 years old, and her career seemed promising after the release of her 2009 debut album, “Between Day & Dream.”
But a string of mystery symptoms, which started in 2008 — including shortness of breath and onstage coughing fits — hampered her progress. Doctors were at a loss. “At one point, I was even told to seek psychiatric help,” she says with a laugh.
Finally, in 2013, she was rushed to the hospital with heart failure. While in the ER, she was told she had a rare disorder, pulmonary hypertension — a continuously high level of blood pressure in the heart’s arteries, which leads to an enlargement of the organ itself. Temtchine’s was three times the normal size. Without treatment, sufferers are given an average of less than three years to live.
But with the right diagnosis under her belt, Temtchine set about completely altering her life, adopting a raw vegan diet, exercising regularly in small bursts and, of course, writing music.
“I locked myself in a room and wrote songs — it was an escape from thinking about my condition,” she says. “There’s a new level of sincerity and truth that didn’t come from me before.”
It’s apparent in her 2015 album, “Be Brave,” a moving collection of pop songs that document her struggle for survival, but also her recovery. “One of the mix engineers got excited about a song on that album [called “Loving You”] because it’s a love song. He said he knew I was getting better because it wasn’t about surviving!”
Even though her prognosis is uncertain, Temtchine has continued to write — a new album is in the works, tentatively titled “Someday” — and, with the help of her metallic sidekick, Steve Martin, her life and career continue to beat the odds. She says she doesn’t experience any difficulties singing or performing onstage now that she’s been diagnosed and has the right treatment and the tank.
“Nobody has any idea what’s going on, but we’re hopeful because everything is going in the right direction!”