Introducing Micachu & The Shapes

Rough Trade's latest signing is London's Mica Levi AKA Micachu.

In 2008 the 21 year old released two limited edition 7" singles, a grime mixtape and scored an instrumental piece for the London Philharmonic Orchestra which was performed at the Royal Festival Hall and played at the BBC Electric Proms which included a varied range of guests including Oasis, Goldfrapp and Burt Bacharach(!).

Her new album Jewellery is due out in March and has been described as "an extraordinary introduction to a unique new talent". Little wonder then that Micachu has already won a fan in experimental-pop pioneer Bjork.

She notes inventive composer Harry Partch as one of her biggest influences. He famously used an array of customised and home made instruments. These included a xylophone made of light bulbs, a Cloud Chamber made out of pyrex dishes that could not only be played musically but detect particles of ionising radiation and a series of highly complicated 44 stringed instruments.

Similarly Micachu uses a modified guitar played with a hammer action called a ‘chu’ and a bowed instrument fashioned from a CD rack. She also uses improvised instruments, such as glass bottles or a vacuum cleaner.

Instructional video:


“An ear-bashing of crazy-paving beats, junk-shop punk, electronic drones and deceptively mellifluous bedsit pop” The Times

“Staggeringly inventive, madly capricious, and utterly unpredictable, this is pop for the 2010s” Dazed & Confused

“Unbridled eccentricity” NME

Check out her music at her myspace