Staff Reviews

Micachu and the Shapes - Never

Review by Hayley Avron

There are no templates. There’s a sense that Micachu’s songs aren’t written, but birthed; thrown at the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting; a collage of sound and ideas. Not as careless as that may sound, but rather: created with abandon and an utter disregard for your rules, Sir.»

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closeinitial pressing of the lp includes free cd of the album. three years after their debut album for rough trade, micachu and the shapes return with a brand new lp of immaculate art-pop. for all micachu's well-documented love of grime and her classical training, what made 2009's 'jewellery' enjoyable was its at once shambling but highly focussed garage-punk trashiness, and that's a quality which remains thankfully intact on 'never' - 'easy' and 'waste' are properly snotty, the high-end production used to draw attention to the bumps and blemishes rather than paper over 'em. 'slick' deserves special mention, all trashcan percussion and pop compression, sounding for all the world like it's been jacked off some messthetics comp of late 80s diy tackle from the provinces. 'heaven', 'never', 'nothing', fall' - these are tracks that to these ears are pretty much instant classics. yep, we're really taken aback by how enjoyable this record is - do yourself a favour and check it out, especially if you hold a candle for this heat, the raincoats, general strike, the pastels, arthur russell, etc and have dreamt of seeing their cause taken up in a pop idiom without recourse to retro pastiche.
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