The Stool Pigeon

Twenty-one-year-old East Londoner Mica Levi is clearly no slave to convention. As well as her time spent fronting a grime outfit, she has set up a semi-classical collective; cut a free-to-download mixtape featuring Capitol K, Toddla T and a load of her own remixes of artists like Jack Peñate, Fields and Mr Frog; composed a score for the London Philharmonic; and put out some of the sweetest leftfield pop, under her own avant-garde alter-ego, Micachu.

“I guess it all started with my childhood infatuation with Harry Partch,” says Levi of her love for experimentation. “I was obsessed with the fact that he invented his own instruments, but, you know, people go to school and learn the recorder not The Boo so no one has a clue how to play any of his amazing creations. I want to make him more than just a footnote in music history.”

Levi continues: “He inspired me to make my own instruments. I started by adapting a guitar and then I got this old Hoover and started using it onstage. I discovered it was able to produce these amazing electronic sounds and it’s been part of my stage show ever since.”

Surprisingly, Levi insists her music belongs firmly in the pop arena. “Although it feels like I’m doing something quite different, I’m a sucker for pop structures,” she says. “The type of music I write depends on what I’m listening to at the time but I always aim to make the surreal as accessible as possible.”

Being a fellow alchemist of the avant-garde, it’s easy to see why Levi enlisted Matthew Herbert to produce her debut single, Lone Ranger. “He was so inspiring,” she coos. “He helped me to achieve what I wanted to without compromising anything. I kind of just did what I wanted to do personally, but his presence really helped. We spent a lot of time just sitting around talking about all these different artists, but when it came down to recording we stuck to this really tight, rigid schedule.”

It’s something that she says is inspired by the strictures imposed by her daytime tutorage at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

“It grew out of a frustration of big concert halls not listening to young musicians,” she says. “I just wanted to set up an environment for getting experimental, compositional pieces out to people. Yeah, it’s not exactly easy to dance to, but sometimes giving people what they’re not expecting is the best option.”

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