MICACHU - Jewellery

Much as our intrepid ears may try, we're never going to catch everything immediately upon (or before) its release; the ongoing flood of upcoming releases ensures that there'll always be some albums that we're a little late on the draw in checking out, even if the cover art or press copy might have caught our eyes and helped push a disc onto our "to listen to" pile, and Jewellery's one great, big, bouncy and rambunctious case in point, released on these shores back in March. 22-year-old Mica Levi's first full-length, backed by her primary-patterned Shapes, is an innovative and extremely catchy set of modern 2-step-schooled skiffle, precociously playing with song structure and production value, but never at the expense of a hummable tune. Fans of Dry/Rid Of Me/4-Track Demos-era PJ Harvey, producer Matthew Herbert's work with Dani Siciliano, and fellow early-twenties young'uns Born Ruffians and Lykke Li should find something special about Micachu, that rare brand of British talent that both The Wire and NME might be watching for a while to come.