Micachu & The Shapes - Golden Phone 7"

I caught 'Lips' on NY Noise the other day randomly and it completely blew me away. Strumming an electric to get this washboard sound, throwing in a completely off harmonic melody. The guitar is new again. Like Abe Vigoda or Half Japanese...there is no reference. It's pure deliberate ignorance of everything that came before it. Totally new. It was just so raw
The track on this single 'Golden Phone' is nothing like 'Lips', sounding. It's super produced, embracing dance, heavy machine beat..the vocal quality clean...she's just able to pull out all these completely different references and bring them together in completely interesting ways. I'm not saying everything is genius, I get lost on some efforts on the full length when it goes English hip hop, but the talent is insanely apparent. She uses a ukulele like no one else.

Another track on her myspace 'Turn me Weller', has the best use of a whirring vacuum cleaner sound ever. In high school my genius friend Travis, who moved to my small town in upstate NY from somewhere cool, would make mix tapes from tapes he found at the thrift store...he made me one called 'The Piver' out of a Springsteen cassette, he whited out the track names for his own and the line in the 'R'. He had a track called 'Sonata for vacuum' where he taped his mom cleaning the living room and their dog going nuts. For someone that just discovered college radio with a painstaking antenna placement in the attic, this was like a complete revelation. I got it immediately...and bought a 4-track that summer.

and being equally impressed, but in a totally different way. She's done tons since then, and it's all pop experimental...with enough I just went back through some posts and remembered talking about Micachu about a year ago sounds to completely confuse. OK, I've gone on enough...I'll probably ruin it by being too in love with it and the expectations will be too high.

This all started from spotting an old blogger draft for this single and thought I'd try to track it down this morning. It's too bad but it looks like it's import only...

Get it from Rough Trade or Accidental

Micachu & The Shapes Golden Phone 7"
This is a 24 carrot golden piece of alt pop and not to be missed! It's the second single from the critically feted Jewellery album and perfectly showcases the band's intricate beats, vocal loops and junk punk clatter.

Always one to go the extra mile, Mica has also created a second mix tape as a follow up to last years word of mouth must have first installment. It features contributions and collaborations from a wealth of young talent including The XX, The Invisible, Man Like Me, Rowdy Superstar, Ghost Poet, Dels, Elan, Lime Headed Dog, Dog Bite, Gold Panda and many more.