Go For The Opener: Micachu And The Shapes before Spoon
Welcome to Go For The Opener, in which The A.V. Club pleads that if you’re getting ready to see a big concert, be sure to get there early and pay attention to the opening acts.
The big show: Spoon, First Avenue, April 2-3
The openers: Deerhunter and Micachu And The Shapes
Why you should listen: Yes, Deerhunter is great. But this is about the band before the band before the headliner. If you haven’t heard of London's Mica Levi, it’s probably because she’s had her hands full on the other side of the Atlantic. In the past two years, she’s released garage and grime mix-tapes, collaborated with 2009 Mercury Prize-winning rapper Speech Debelle, remixed tracks by The Xx and Fool’s Gold, and had one of her pieces performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
All of this is separate from her work fronting Micachu And The Shapes, a technologically savvy junkyard band that bangs out its improbably catchy songs on whatever happens to be within reach. Levi’s primary instrument is an oddly tuned miniature guitar, but she also dabbles in homemade instruments and has been known to lug a vacuum cleaner onstage. And yet, the music doesn't sound messy. The band's playful 2009 debut, Jewellery, displays a sort of controlled chaos where scratches, clicks, and kissy sounds are kept in line with loops, and guitar strums are more about texture than the actual notes being played.
