The last time I saw Micachu and the Shapes play they seemed young, timid. They were good - no doubt about that - but even in the snug confines of Great Scott in Boston they were small, swimming in their homemade oversized t-shirts. Last Tuesday night at Le Poisson Rouge, they showed that they have grown up quite a bit. These aren’t just kids, these are bona fide musicians, performers, innovators.
The night kicked off with a great opening set by local Brooklyn duo Tanlines, beat-driven up-and-comers on the chillwave scene. The pair had trouble with a broken piece of equipment that Jesse Cohen described as “Much more important to us than it is to you,” and were forced to improvise new arrangements ad hoc throughout the set. From my perspective in the crowd, however, they hardly missed a beat – Eric Emm’s guitars and vocals shone through a sparser backing than usual without sounding thin or vulnerable. “It’s a shame we have to wrap up,” said Cohen toward the end of their time on stage, “we’re just getting used to this.”
Although it was indeed sad to see Tanlines leave, there was a tangible buzz in the room for Micachu and the Shapes. The trio kicked off their set with a run of three new songs featuring Mica Levi playing distorted electric guitar – a bold choice to begin the evening. The songs - “Not So Sure,” “Low Dog,” and “Fire” - were a bit more harried than typical MATS fare, but the crowd went along with reckless abandon, anticipating a return to the familiar soon enough.
They were not disappointed, as Mica put down her electric guitar – or perhaps threw down is a better choice of words, given her disregard for the condition of her instruments – and grabbed her signature acoustic half guitar. Launching into “Vulture,” she and bandmates Raisa Khan and Marc Pell smiled broadly, recognizing the comfort of old friends.
The most striking difference between this set and their show nine months ago was that comfort, the ease with which Levi, Khan, and Pell pounded out complex and unpredictable tunes. The band seemed more at home on stage, the songs more lived in and fleshed out. Micachu + The Shapes found a delicate balance between replicating album sounds and expounding upon them – “Lips” and “Curly Teeth” reproduced difficult studio sounds, while “Golden Phone” notably played with tempo and dynamic ranges to give the tune an entirely new feel. It was a balanced set in its lack of balance; I was never quite sure what was coming next, but was greeted at each turn by familiar cacophonic pop.
Faces fresh despite seemingly endless touring, Micachu and The Shapes pulled off the difficult feat of re-inventing an album that, for me, had already been reinvented twice. These are not musicians touring to make a dime – they are young performers grinding out show after show to master their art, growing more confident and consequently more inventive as they go. 2009’s Jewellery was already a strikingly original record; who knows where the next album will take them. Tuesday night at Le Poisson Rouge made me excited to find out.
