Possibly one of the most intriguing pop bands of recent times, Micachu & The Shapes’ debut album Jewellery is a ramshackle collection of such myriad influences and unusual instrumentation that it sounds as unclassifiable as it is catchy. Over the course of the last year Mica Levi and her backing band “The Shapes” (Marc Pell and Raisa Khan) have tightly honed their intensely creative live show to perfection, utilising all manner of equipment to recreate their unique combination of DIY pop and musique concrète; though according to Mica, not all elements could endure indefinitely.

“We don’t really use the vacuum cleaner anymore, it made me really ill actually.”

The band are keen to downplay the relevance of potentially statement making tools that find their way into the music. “I was doing a lot of vacuuming in the house whilst listening to music and thought it would be nice to start the record with the vacuum cleaner. I don’t think its a massive musical gesture. And we can’t afford a sampler.”

And as Marc interjects, its clearly far more fun to work out how to play new objects than simply sample and go. The end result is drum kits bolstered with Stella bottles and all manner of strange droning devices. “That’s the Boss delay pedal actually,” Mica corrects. “I put my microphone in there and move the pitch of it to make it sound like two people are singing at the same time.”

This manner of experimentation is quite befitting of a band who cite controversial depression era composer Harry Partch as their key infuence. A keenly avant garde musician, his theoretical work on microtonal scale systems helped tear apart 12 tone convention in academic music while he constructed his own instruments to work with his new tunings and accompany pieces based around the inflections of the speaking voice.

“It was his philosophy really; I feel like I can relate to him because he was fresh thinking about writing music,” says Mica. “He was immersed in very different parts of society and handled it really
open mindedly. There was this difference of high society and people without jobs and he just dotted in between the two... He was just a brilliant inventor and great musician.”

Considering how easily this description could fit Mica, its quite clear why Partch is such an inspiration. Equally at home studying composition at Guildhall as she is making beats for grime MCs in Bow, East London, Mica represents a meeting point of otherwise disparate musical stylings;  though the combination can be a draining process as Mica experienced when they played with the ACME string quartet.

“They did a piece I wrote called ‘Bored’ for a string quartet, really short movements. It was a bit of a mess really; quite scatty and aggressive. It was just weird to do a gig, connecting that with the band. The listening process for the two things are quite different and you need it in context”.

Despite Mica’s modesty, her music has attracted some high profile attention. Recently Bjork featured the video for the band’s latest single ‘Turn Me Weller’ on her website. Also, legendary electronic musician Matthew Herbert was sufficiently impressed by Mica’s home recordings to co- produce the album, and his strict recording manifesto brings things full circle back to Mica’s Guildhall days.

“That’s one of the things we learnt at Guildhall; getting certain projects and being told to do this or that a certain way in briefs.”

The Shapes are certainly the kind of band who need to impose limitations to reign in the sheer wealth of ideas bursting forth. The next step from Jewellery could be in any direction, but it will be fascinating wherever it leads.

Simon Docherty