Chopped & Screwed
Rough Trade***
Mici Levi's 2009 debut (
Jewellery) was gloriously rumbustious and twitchy, a scratchy record full of fascinating diversions as its creator went happily against that season's glossy electropop grain.
Chopped & Screwedis not a follow-up per se, but a record of what happened when Levi and her band joined the London Sinfonietta Orchestra for a live show last May. It proved to be an inspired hook-up, with Levi utilising the "chopping and screwing" technique perfected by DJ Screw, where a tune's tempo is slowed down and even halved. The method is used here to spin a bunch of new compositions and replace what could have been quirky folk and classical pieces with eclectic, eerie slow-motion drones. Such an imaginative approach speaks legions for Levi and her band's experimental nous. See myspace.com/micayomusic
Download tracks: Medicine Drank, Everything