"Classical Crunk": Micachu's Chopped and Screwed (2011)

Oh, that's why I'm not finding Micachu and the Shapes' latest effort easily.

They moved away from pop.

The band performed with the London Sinfonietta at Kings Place, London in May 2010 and in March 2011 released the live recording as their second full-length album, "Chopped and Screwed". Unlike their previous effort, the recording largely avoids pop sensibilities in favor of a slower, more ambient style and repetitive, dischordant string arrangements. The band have been chosen by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that he will curate in December 2011 in Minehead, England.

This work is awesome, pop or not.

Weird how in this first song she reminds me of Siouxsie, her vocals anyway.

Maybe it's not only the vocals that remind me of Siouxsie-- I mean if we allow the comparison to go back to punk-era Siouxsie and the Banshees or the early period.

If the more avanty stuff by Siouxsie and the Banshees--or say early Simple Minds--were still pop--then maybe this is too.

I don't necessarily think this is any further afield pop than the previous work.

Okay, I do get it though.

A song like "Golden Phone" is snappily catchy and infectious.

But songs from the earlier album like "Eat Your Heart" make it clear she's fascinated with noise and how easily noise becomes music. Okay, sometimes it's just nested in there and plays off the music. But then doesn't it become music?

I guess that's a semantics game where language just doesn't keep up with music. If you isolate the noise from its musical context, it's still noise. But if it's in there and texturally patches the air in a composition, then it's music.

I think the use of such elements (often in ambient music) is really the equivalent of the figure-ground problem--being modeled in music instead of visual art.

As to "pop" or "not pop," I guess the difference is really just the difference in viewer count. On "Golden Phone" it's 300K and on "Eat Your Heart" I think it was something like 23K.

So there's your pop versus avant.

Because the differences with the new stuff (well, the first one I heard--posted at top here) are largely textural.

And she's doing some Doppler shifting with the voices and instrumental voices in there. Nice hallucinogenic touches.

But it stays pretty close to "allowable" pop length and she has that dreamy gorgeous chorus. So not that far from pop, really.

I love how even when Micachu isn't building new instruments to use, she can make a symphony orchestra sound like new instruments she's built.

She gets some gorgeous effects out of the pizzicati.

I don't blame her for taking advantage of that orchestra while she has the offers.

Pop will always be there if she needs some cash.

But maybe this will encourage her to challenge her amazing gift for composition--and move it toward more complex and longer works.

No wonder Bjork loves her. She's like another Bjork.

She is hemorrhaging popularity though (pop in the numbers sense) since these only have view counts like 4K to 10K or so.

But I'm sure she doesn't give a fuck.

I'm sure she knows she's here to grow as a kickass songwriter.

The numbers can catch up later.

I love the way the second song unfolds.

Clever quoting of movie "suspsense strings" and such a gorgeously dark palette.

Total Eastern influence here from Indian ragas to gamelan.

She's Beatles-level inventive here.

Girl's got serious chops.

Just saw the interview. "Prog-rock hip-hop" indeed.

Micachu was a musical prodigy, writing songs at four, and had parents with serious musical gifts/credentials.

I bet she was enjoying things like Bartok and the avant-garde Russian composers as well when she was still a toddler.

I love how she (and consequently her music) is so often interested in scruffiness and loutishness. I mean lyrically but also even thematically.

She seems to love dialect and the legerdemain of things like sneaky Cockney.

Many of her pieces strike me as the musical equivalent of the Cockney dialect.

I added Language Log, by the way, to my blogroll.

Only recently discovered those (two) sites.

Totally impressed and smitten.

Those sites get like 16,000 hits a day.

All deserved.