This is the debut album by experimental sonic wunderkind Mica Levi, age 21. Hailing from England, where she studies at Guildhall School of Music, and counting musical deviant Harry Partch as an influence, Mica and her band of drummer + keyboardist create short, quirky pop songs that could just as easily have come out of a vacuum cleaner as a guitar. With such a boundless imagination and homemade instruments to match, it’s hard to believe Micachu was snubbed by the Mercury Music Prize mofos this year. Lotta spunk to make sounds like these. This is what I call junkyard pop, or ramshackle rock - where the instruments are as custom as the music they create. And the music makes no excuses for its exuberantly brash and occasionally atonal delivery, but it doesn’t need to. If you don’t listen fast enough, it’s gone, leaving you wanting more. And with an album that’s barely 30 minutes long, it’s hard to think you wouldn’t want to give it one more go. That’s how it went for me. Except after that “one more go”…
it was fifty.
Micachu and her Shapes are on tour throughout the US now, so check them out! They’re cute as fuck.
“Lips” video:
