Mieko Shimizu is a London based Japanese composer who, on her MySpace page, says "I love making dysfunctional beats for people who dance in their brain".
She has released albums as Apache 61 and under her real name but this is her first outing as Mico, her family nickname.
She has also been busy collaborating with the likes Mick Karn (ex-Japan), Nitin Sawney, David Cunningham (Flying Lizards) and Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) and has also written music for a ballet at London's Royal Opera House.
On My Tentacles, her breathy, almost childlike voice is set against a series of glitchy pulses to give the nine tracks on the album a chilled trip-hop mood. The most obvious comparison for what are described as "sumptuous symphonic songs" is to the softer tracks of Björk.
The single, I See A Soul (which comes with a stylish video), is quite representative of soothing tunes which are pretty without ever being as captivating as they could be.
Bullet Train is one of the most evocative melodies which glides smoothly and the fact that it is sung in Japanese helps to create a nice ethereal mood. Other songs are in English and clunky new-agey lyrics like "I pray with every fibre of my skin" (Cobra Mist) tend to be overly intrusive.
The broken beats and rapped vocals on the title track has a hint of edginess I'd like to have heard more of.
By holding back the urge to add more eclectic beats, the album has a restrained conventionality and, as a result, doesn't have a strong enough identity of its own.
