It's easy to review something on what it sounds like – it’s good for the reviewer because it expresses everything else you’re trying to say but in a language people can understand. “So and so sound like this or that band” is the clearest way to tell the reader what to expect. So what to do if the release you have in your hands sounds like nothing else you've ever heard? Do you start trying to describe it in seasons or colours, or do you just go as descriptive as possible and hope that people understand where you’re coming from? This is the predicament caused by ‘Jewellery’ – the debut album from MICACHU & THE SHAPES, which teeters somewhere between promising and amazing – a knitted hooded sweater of an album.
At the epicentre of the band is 21 year old Mika Levi, who along with vocal and guitar duties, is also responsible for the weird and wonderful but hard to pin down moments of tweaks and samples that make this an unusual proposition. Opening track ‘Vulture’ is a blustering pop song, heading from distorted walls of sound and scratchy basses to a stripped down and simple chorus. It’s a recurring theme on the album – chaos to simplicity in the space of a sentence, but there’s plenty to do with it.
Many moments are instantly catchy - like ‘Ship,’ which makes you want to dance in a floppy way. ‘Sweetheart’ has a nursery rhyme quality to you, a breathless poem that seems to capture being young and naïve and enthusiastic in well under a minute. At times, things sound industrial, like a more commercially minded version of Liars (‘Wrong’). At other moments, things are more lilting and almost tropical (‘Curly Teeth’), and frequently there’s the sound of Missy Elliott minus the bling. It’s very cool.
Lyrically, this album is packed full of neat little lines that will have you smiling with the subtle wit that does nothing to trivialise the music. ‘Just in Case’ is an affable little ditty about erring on the side of caution – “Won’t have sex ‘cos of STD’s,’ Micachu laments, and you can’t help but smile with recognition. That particular school lesson made me think twice too. On ‘Calculator’, a lovely little analogy is used to describe relationship trouble – it doesn’t quite fit, but nothing on this album does. It smacks of outsider logic and a completely self-unawareness that is much more accessible than it is indulgent.
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Overall, the nearest likeness to this album is to call it the mischievous younger sister of Beck’s 2008 album ‘Modern Guilt.’ The over-riding impression I get from this release is that it shares many qualities with Bjork. It sounds nothing like Bjork, but lyrically there are moments that are sweet without being saccharine, with enough variety and subversions on the norm that it demands its own genre.
Clocking in at the half hour mark this album is a brief introduction to the gloriously demented world of Micachu and the Shapes. The originality on this debut, alongside the sweet without being naïve vocals gives you the feeling of Bjork, which is one of the finest compliments I can bestow on a musician or three. Indulgent and different without being difficult and exclusive. It also leaves the wildest smile on your face, which can be crucial.
Not making the predictions yet, but if the ideas remain and grow, then we might have something very special on our hands. No words I can come up with do this justice – a must-listen.
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