by Micachu (Jewellery, 2009)
The all too familiar figure of the East London DJ/MC has in recent years come to be more associated with ridicule than anything else. Certainly we wouldn’t associate people peddling grime mix tapes on the streets of Bow with students composing pieces for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Enter: Micachu.
The track 'Turn Me Well' taken from her Rough Trade debut Jewelry is a fine example of Micachu’s ability to inhabit two, or ten, worlds at once. Part of Micachu’s charm is her reluctance to use traditional pop song structures: in this song we are treated to an intro featuring a vacuum cleaner then a prolonged verse powered by a “dirty, grimey" snare (to borrow a phrase from Bow’s most famous son). This arrangement retains a strong pop ethos whilst still managing to baffle and confuse over the length of the album. Here we have a classically trained musician who probably grew up in the wrong neighbourhood of London and was then ordered to make an album with known madman producer Matthew Herbert sat at the helm
Easy listening it is not, immensely fun it is.
DJ/B
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