21 year old Mica Levi AKA Micachu and The Shapes: Raisa Khan on keyboards and Marc Pell on drums are signed to Rough Trade Records. Bjork is said to be a fan of Micachu and can probably indentify with another artist brave enough to take pop music into entirely uncharted territory. Micachu is largely inspired by Harry Partch who 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 ionizing 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.
