In 1863, the scientist Michael Faraday was given a lighthouse on the river Thames. The man who discovered the magnetic field and was the very first to observe "nanoparticles" conducted experiments in the lighthouse that would help make the safe passage of ships that little bit easier. It was a little side project to his regular research; the Audioslave to his electro-magnetic Rage Against The Machine.
Today, Faraday's lighthouse looks out from Canning Town over to the O2 and a new Olympic cable car system that's either quite charming or, depending on your point of view, like a bad episode of Futurama. His spirit of experimentation lives on, though. Alongside the lighthouse there are now also a number of shipping containers, painted jaunty colours and kitted out as studio spaces. The English National Opera are tenants and so is Mica Levi – also known as Micachu – and while it might be something of a stretch to claim the singer and musician as Faraday's heir, she certainly likes fiddling around with stuff.
"This is just an adapted guitar," she says as she shows me around her elegant container. "I started fucking about with it yeeeeeears ago. There's a pedal here, which is from the back of an electric guitar, the bit where the strings go through. So you can change the tuning with that." She pauses: "That was experiment number one, and then there was this … It's just like a slide, basically, but I wanted it so I could make a noise like a computer doing a complicated sum and then chucking out a piece of paper."
Other slightly battered-looking instruments are to be found strewn around. There's one called the Chopper, a contraption made of MDF, copper piping and little bits of plastic that operates like an old clothes-wringer but manages to combine the sounds of both percussion and strings. There's also the Diddley Bo, another slide instrument that's fitted with electric guitar pick-ups and built from "a bit of a bed that was lying in our garden".
At 25 years of age, Levi is a little concerned about becoming known as the woman who makes crazy instruments, but an equally appropriate title might be that of the UK's least conventional pop star. She is just about to release a second album with her band Micachu & The Shapes. Their debut, Jewellery, was released three years ago to equal parts acclaim and bewilderment at a sound that threw pop hooks, grime percussion and industrial noise into a Magimix before pressing "pulse". In between, the band have pursued numerous side-projects of their own, one of which added an orchestra and Houston hip-hop into the mix when they worked with the London Sinfonietta on last year's Chopped & Screwed.
Some see Micachu's music as an exciting, wonky new form of pop. Others, understandably perhaps, find it impenetrable. (At this point, it's worth noting that there's a plate on the wall of the container, a gift from Mica's mum. Recalls Levi: "She said to me after the first album, 'You'll never make it platinum, so I thought I'd send you some ceramic.'") But whichever way you look at it, you couldn't accuse Levi and her bandmates Raisa Khan and Marc Pell of being pretentious so-and-sos. Spend any time in their company and you see musicians that are less crawling up their own fundaments than on the lookout for fun, genuinely hunting for something that sounds good to their ears.
'If you're playing something new, really go with your gut. The braver you are, the more careless you are with it, the better it is'
"It doesn't have to have a weird sound," says Levi. "Though there's obviously a lot of stuff I like about that. What matters is whether you're genuinely excited by it. If you're playing something new, play it confidently and really go with your gut – then it's going to be good. The braver you are, the more careless you are with it, the better it is."
"We probably spend more than three quarters of our waking hours making music," says Pell. "Which might not be to the benefit of our mental health. You start out with that raw idea, but then you get on to the mechanical brain train. You become a slave to the idea and you just have to finish it. You start with a few playful sketches, but soon you're just a slave to it. It works you."
Work and play are apparently intertwined for the band in a way that obviously inspires them. It's an idea that has the whiff of something old-fashioned about it, like a guildsman working at their craft, rather than an office worker clocking in and out. I ask whether the country's current woes and, especially, those being experienced by young people might have one positive outcome: that it might lead to an upturn in creativity. Levi, who can often seem circumspect, revising her opinions mid-sentence, is suddenly enthused.
"You don't need money to make music or art or anything like that," she says. "It's good for people. If you do go to places in the world where there aren't the same luxuries – you know, luxuries that we have, the electronic comforts – people socialise, people play music. It's how you hang out, it's how you show your skill! You have a bit of a release, you have a bit of a dance. If you've got no money, if you can't afford to go out all the time, then … " Suddenly, her reticence returns: "Oh, I dunno, it's hard to say."
'I like bands that sound like they're from where they're from. I'm definitely interested in being English; I say that a lot'
Levi goes on to add that "it's quite moody in this country at the moment". I ask her to elaborate, and Khan recalls a recent trip to New York where the band were all struck by a "bounce in people's step".
"We came back to London and just felt, like, 'It's not all that good,'" continues Levi. "I also went to Pelourinho in Salvador in Brazil, which was completely different and is quite dangerous. You know when somewhere's dangerous; you can feel it, you can sense it. It's a different kind of danger, but I came back home and got a similar kind of feeling here. Which is kind of funny."
Just as she's speaking, a brief but noisy storm is breaking out overhead, so maybe we should blame the weather. But despite being of a generation where global travel and digital culture have changed everyone's point of reference, the band seem determined to maintain an element of Britishness to what they do. Their lyrics are full of colloquialisms ("Are you sure that you're OK?" "Couldn't be better"), the vocals are spun in Ian Dury-esque monotone, and there are touches of Goons-esque humour to the music as well as the tones of the Clash. When I arrive, the EastEnders Sing-Along album is on the turntable, and I'm served tea in a paper union flag cup.
"The internet merges everything," says Levi. "Back in the day, when the idea of a telephone call was still pretty snazzy, bands started touring to show off their sound. They were saying, 'We have to go show people this! We have to show people the sound that we've started making here!' You go abroad on tour now and you come off a plane and everyone looks the same as they do in London.
"But I like bands that are distinctive," she continues, "that sound like they're from where they're from. I'm definitely into that. I'm definitely interested in English and being English. Actually [turning to Khan] I say that a lot, don't I? 'Ah yeah, it's really English.'" She smiles. "That's nice! That distinction of culture, isn't it? Isn't it? I hope so!"
Never is out now on Rough Trade. You can still stream it here
