All that Racket Issue #40

Micachu's instrumental inventions inspire our top five "found sound" tracks

By Erica Phillips
Published: June 1st, 2009 | 12:00am

“You can make a sound out of everything,” says Mica Levi, a.k.a. Micachu, one of this year’s biggest surprises in musical innovation. Juxtaposing her sweet, youthful, curly-haired persona with creative microphone use, grimy electronic looping, and the most unconventional of noisy “instruments,” Micachu and the Shapes caught many critics off-guard with blunt and raucous effect.

Levi says the band’s technique aims in part to demonstrate “how much noise there always is.” Complete with bandmates Marc Bell and Raisa Khan, the Shapes’ DIY stage process becomes as much a part of the music as the sonic product that results. Influenced to varied extent by the noise rock, electronic, and found sound movements, Micachu and her contemporaries are clearing a new space in the ever-growing definition of “music.”

As we play and replay Jewellery, listening to each carefully crafted layer and wondering how these kids created all that racket, we’re reminded of a few other innovators that hold reckless regard for proper instrumentation. Dig deep and listen close to these tracks — there’s nothing more exciting than a brand new sound.

VZ FOUND SOUND MIXTAPE
Track 1: On “From Stardust to Sentience” from High Places’ self-titled 2008 album, Mary Pearson incorporates the friendly tones created by tapping a mixing bowl.

Track 2: Elisabeth Esselink, a.k.a. Solex, achieves a spooky effect using distorted recorded male vocals on “Honkey Donkey,” from her 2004 album The Laughing Stock of Indie Rock.

Track 3: CocoRosie’s freak-pop lead track, “Rainbowarriors” from the 2007 release The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn is chock full of creative instrumentation, including some re-wired children’s toys.

Track 4: The Books employed a metal filing cabinet on “An Animated Description of Mr. Maps,” from 2005’s album Lost and Safe. Drums were timed to a recorded speech found on an unmarked cassette, then re-recorded inside the rattling old cabinet.

Track 5: Never one to play it small, Björk utilizes an entire rainstorm as a backdrop to the beautiful “Pneumonia” from 2007’s Volta.