Mica Levi

Micaela Rachel "Mica" Levi (born February 1987), also known by their stage name Micachu, is an English musician, composer, producer, singer, and songwriter.

Levi studied composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, but left without a degree when their experimental pop band Micachu and the Shapes began to achieve early success. Their debut album Jewellery (2009) received enthusiastic reviews and was followed by several more studio albums, with the group changing their name to Good Sad Happy Bad in 2016. Levi has also released solo projects under both the Micachu moniker and their given name, and has frequently collaborated with other artists, including Kwes and Tirzah.

In the early 2010s, Levi made their debut as a film composer, creating the widely praised score for Jonathan Glazer's film Under the Skin (2013). Levi received a European Film Award for Best Composer and a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music nomination, and won multiple other awards for this first movie composition. Levi then collaborated again with Glazer on his next film, the acclaimed The Zone of Interest (2023) (for which they won the Soundtrack Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival), and two short films. In 2017, Levi received their first Academy Awards nomination for Pablo Larraín's Jackie (2016). They also worked with director Steve McQueen on his Small Axe anthology film series.

Early life

Micaela Rachel Levi, known as Mica Levi or Micachu, was born in 1987 in Guildford, Surrey, England and grew up in Watford, near London. Levi is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent; their grandfather was a German Jewish violinist who managed to escape from the Nazis during World War II and fled to the United Kingdom. Levi was raised in a musical household. Their father, Erik Levi, is a respected music scholar — the director of performance at Royal Holloway which is part of the University of London and an expert on music in the Third Reich — besides being a pianist. Their mother, meanwhile, was a cello teacher. Levi has a sister, Francesca, who is a video artist and has worked with them on various art projects.

Levi began learning the violin at the age of four and also learned to play the viola as a child. They then won a scholarship place at the prestigious Purcell School for Young Musicians at the age of nine and studied composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London from 2006 to 2009. There, they started an experimental pop band with two friends, keyboardist Raisa Khan and drummer Marc Pell, called Micachu and the Shapes. The name Micachu was an obvious Pokémon reference. They quickly took off, and Levi never finished their composition degree. Performing as a DJ, they also released a mixtape titled Filthy Friends, which was posted on their official Myspace page.

Music career

Micachu and the Shapes/Good Sad Happy Bad

After dropping out of university, Micachu and the Shapes signed to Matthew Herbert and Accidental Records. With the Shapes, Levi's focus was experimental pop music. Most of the music prominently featured an acoustic half-guitar with various non-standard tunings, extensive distortion, and use of noise and found-object elements, as well as occasionally unusual time signatures. Despite these experimental leanings, the artist categorizes their output with the Shapes as "pop music." Their debut album, Jewellery was recorded around Levi's composition studies at Guildhall School. In the wake of growing buzz, Micachu and the Shapes were signed to Rough Trade, which released Jewellery on 9 March 2009 to critical praise. The band performed with the London Sinfonietta at Kings Place, London, in May 2010, and in March 2011 released the live recording as the album Chopped and Screwed. The follow-up to their debut, Never, was released on 23 July 2012. The band then released the album Good Sad Happy Bad on 11 September 2015.

In March 2016, the band announced on social media that they were changing their name to Good Sad Happy Bad. The band then expanded to a four-piece, adding multi-instrumentalist and producer CJ Calderwood and Raisa Khan becoming the band's lead vocalist.

As a film composer

Levi's first major film score was for Jonathan Glazer's 2013 film Under the Skin. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michel Faber and stars Scarlett Johansson. Produced at age 26 and created in collaboration with Glazer, Levi's film score themes are so tightly woven into the film that they give a symbiotic quality, in which the aural feels inseparable from the visual. The score was widely acclaimed for pushing the boundaries of music and sound design and Levi was nominated for multiple awards. They won Best Composer at the 2014 European Film Awards, and tied with Jonny Greenwood for Best Music/Score at the 2014 Los Angeles Film Critics Awards. They were also nominated for the 2015 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music.

In 2016, Levi completed their second major film score, for Pablo Larraín's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis biopic Jackie. Larraín had been a juror at the 2013 Venice Film Festival, and thought that Under the Skin deserved a film score prize. Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, also on the jury, was enthralled by Levi's bold score for the film, and he and Larraín spoke passionately of their accomplishment, which led to the collaboration on Jackie. Levi was nominated for Best Original Score at the 89th Academy Awards but lost to Justin Hurwitz for La La Land.

In 2017, Levi contributed to the science-fiction film Marjorie Prime. The same year, in association with musicians Demdike Stare and Gruff Rhys, Levi contributed to the soundtrack for Phil Collins' Ceremony: The Return of Friedrich Engels which was screened at the Manchester International Festival and then broadcast by the BBC. Two years later, Levi worked with Colombian director Alejandro Landes and composed the Monos (2019) score. In December, it was announced they would be writing the score for the dark-comedy thriller film Zola which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020.

In 2020, Levi composed the score for Mangrove, the first, feature-length episode of Steve McQueen's Small Axe series for the BBC and Amazon Studios.

In 2023, Levi composed the score for The Zone of Interest, directed by Jonathan Glazer. It won the Soundtrack Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Previously, Levi had worked with Glazer twice again, writing the soundtrack for two short films made by the film-maker: The Fall (2019) and Strasbourg 1518 (2020).

Musical collaborations

Levi is also known for their various collaborations with English singer and songwriter Tirzah, a close friend they met at Purcell. Levi notably produced the Devotion (2018), Colourgrade (2021) and Trip9love (2023) albums.

Solo works

In 2021, Levi released their solo debut album Ruff Dog.

Personal life

Besides their musical learning, Levi played a lot of football as a child and even turned up on the first day at Purcell in a football uniform with shin guards: "I played midfield, although now I think I’d be a striker." In 2016, Levi told in an interview that Bernard Herrmann is their favourite film composer, Bruce Langhorne's work for The Hired Hand their favourite film score of all time and Cliff Martinez's score for Spring Breakers their favourite recent film score.

They came out as non-binary in 2020.

List of film scores

Feature films

Short films

Television

Discography

Studio albums

Mixtapes

Singles / EPs

• "Taz and May Vids" (2016) (with Tirzah and Brother May)
• "Clothes Wear Me" (2016) (with KEVIN)
• "Delete Beach" (2017)
• "Obviously" (2018) (with Tirzah as Taz & Meeks)
• "Skunk Boy." (2022)

Production

As featured artist

• Speech Debelle - "Better Days" (2009)
• Babyfather - "God Hour" (2016)
• Arca - "Think Of" and "Baby Doll" (2016)
• Mount Kimbie - "Marilyn" (2017)
• Stubborn - Mid (2020)
• Bar Italia - letting go makes it stay (2021)

Awards and recognition

References

External links

• Official website
• Mica Levi at IMDb
• Mica Levi at AllMusic
• Mica Levi at Rough Trade Records
• Mica Levi at Accidental Records