Maintaining Her Composer

By Joe Kavanagh

Perhaps at no time since the late 1960s has the word "change" been so en vogue. Companies advocate how they are going to change the world, analysts and talking heads wax lyrical about how our financial systems must change if we are to avoid another economic meltdown and - much as I admire him - President Barack Obama ran his entire campaign based around change, without ever actually articulating in depth as to what those changes would be.

Generally speaking however, while people might be in love with the idea of change, they are not quite so open to its application, particularly when it promotes something radically different to conventional wisdom.

Whether it was Aristotle's contention that the world was not flat, or Copernicus' assertion that the sun did not travel around the earth, the history of the human race has been a story of resistance to change, where its most stringent advocates have more often been dismissed as quacks or, worse still, taken out back and hung from the highest tree.

The entire phenomenon is not unlike the animal kingdom, where the members of a species will set upon one of their own kind, often violently, if that member happens to look or behave differently to the rest of the pack.

Thankfully, most cultures today are a little more tolerant of those who come to the table bug-eyed with big ideas but resistance to their claims remains, and fans of music are no different.

Lest we forget, upon hearing rock'n'roll for the first time, most music industry insiders and radio programmers were of the firm belief that it was a spurious fad that would soon pass, a reaction similar to the one endured by hip hop from the moment it began to trickle out of the South Bronx in the 1970s.

While her moniker makes her sound like the fifth Teletubby, and her incipient career means that she certainly has a way to go before she can truly be described as genre-defining, Micachu has unquestionably hit the ground running, with an album that challenges musical etiquette even as it seeks to redefine its parameters.

Mica Levi was born and raised in Surrey, in 1987, the daughter of a full-time cello teacher mother, and a college professor father who lectures in London's Royal Holloway College, where he specializes in Music in the Third Reich.

Surrounded by such acute musical influences, it was hardly surprising that she took up the violin at four-years-old, but particularly telling that she began writing her own compositions only months later.

As she progressed, she also began studying viola and classical composition at the Purcell School of music, where she earned a scholarship to the renowned Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which saw her move to Bow, east London. Running parallel to her classical music tendencies was a growing love for electronic music, brought about when she chanced upon the music of hugely-influential, Limerick-born, Richard James, better known by his stage name, Aphex Twin.

Her fascination with the genre soon saw her spending "an unhealthy amount of time" working on her own electronic compositions, often sitting in front of a computer screen throughout the night as she attempted to complete a new loop.

Working under the name Micachu, her skill and competence soon brought her to the attention of the local Grime and Garage scene, leading to an unlikely alliance between the middle-class composer and urban street kids, of which she once recalled: "We hung out a lot actually. It was quite strange. They were crazy boys, in trouble with the law all the time. We were from such different musical social backgrounds, but it didn't really seem to matter."

In time her ambition and connections saw her put together a mix-tape, Filthy Friends, with a group she referred to as The Cluster, which included disparate names like The Streets' Mike Skinner, jazz act Troyka, pop act, Golden Silver and MCs such as Man Like Me and Ghostpoet.

Releasing it as a free download on her MySpace site, the immaculately-tailored release went on to become one of the most talked about releases on London's underground club scene, due to its innovation and originality.

Her growing profile also brought her to the attention of producer/composer/label boss, Mathew Herbert, himself something of a maverick in the music world, who often operated outside the conventions of standard musical practice (such as composing a house music piece entirely from the sound of World War II bombs).

Signing her to his print, Accidental Records, he encouraged her leftfield approach to electronic music and nurtured her natural inquisitiveness.

Seeking to hone her sound, she set about forming a band known as The Shapes, enlisting the help of college classmate, Raisa Khan, on keyboards, and drummer, Marc Pell, who answered an advertisement she placed on MySpace.

The group made their debut in May of last year with the release of single, Lone Ranger, which was followed up two months later with the more accessible, Golden Phone, a track that truly touched off a buzz in the UK and beyond.

The group finished out the summer by playing festivals such as Bestival and the V Festival, in addition to accompanying Mystery Jets on tour, at the latter's personal request.

With the buzz about this exhilarating new band beginning to percolate up through the ranks, the trio returned to the studio last fall, in order to continue working on their full length debut.

Where most acts are content to simply work on creating their own sound, it should be noted that so devoted is Micachu to her craft that she has followed the path of her idol, avant-garde US composer/hobo/philosopher, Harry Patch, by actually inventing her own instruments, in order to create the specific sound that she envisages.

So it is that despite not yet reaching her 22nd birthday, by virtue of her own imagination, some power tools and a soldering iron, she has already invented a range of instruments including, a xylophone made of light bulbs, a modified guitar with a bass string and hammer action called a "Chu", a bowed instrument made from a CD rack and an instrument called a Cloud Chamber, which is made from Pyrex plates and not only plays notes but also detects particles of ionized radiation!

Her thirst for innovation and creativity is such that she carries a mini-disc player everywhere with her, in case she should come across a sound that she likes and she has also used glass bottles and a vacuum cleaner as instruments on her album. Early this year, advance copies of her album were sent out to several labels and, almost predictably, a bidding war ensued, with Rough Trade coming out on top.

In March, the fruits of her labor were revealed with the release of Jewellery, a celebration of invention that has been accurately described as "gloriously messy", while another referred to it as the musical equivalent of a David Lynch movie, in so far as it only makes sense after repeated encounters. In her own words: "It's pop music, definitely. I don't know, maybe experimental pop. That's probably the simplest. I don't really know what it is. I'm not saying I'm doing something amazingly new and different but I'm a bit greedy in that when I bring songs to the band I'm taking a lot from everything I listen to. I'm a sucker like that. Like, if I'm into something, like garage or R&B, I try and write music like that. It gets all mixed up and makes it pop because it's not one specific genre."

Challenging without ever being contrived, it is not just different for the sake of being different, but the first stop on an artistic journey that promises to be as thought-provoking as it is rewarding.

Micachu recently confessed: "I'm still trying to work out what I want to do...but I'm getting there I think." A wise person once said that "happiness is journey, not a destination" and if the same is true regarding the world of music, then Micachu is undoubtedly one of the finest and bravest explorers out there.