Every decade has a defining genre of music that, one day, will make people look back and think “wow that was rubbish”.

In the nineties, it was bouncy rave, until Britpop took over and made everyone supposedly cool. For the unfunnily-named noughties era, it’s fair to say that nothing new emerged and survived. Soppy indie was everywhere and weak commercial drum and bass also came back from the ashes.

However, it wasn’t all bad. Towards the end of the decade, the underground sound of dubstep started to creep out of London and into the commercial world. Burial even got a Mercury prize nod, but shunned it in favour of staying anonymous. Whilst we can’t predict what will get you grooving down the local singles club night during this new decade, we can take a recap over some of our favourite artists who we mentioned in 2009…

11 – First Aid Kit – A duo made up of two sisters who are making music that combines everything from folk and indie influences with mature songwriting. With the sisters not even in their twenties, promising things are afoot for them.

10 - Starting Teeth – Electronic music that decides to do all sorts of things. Cramming in techno, electro, hip hop, metal and crazy vocals, it’s the sort of stuff that will complicate your feet on the dancefloor.

9 – Bombay Bicycle Club – Most guitar bands were getting dire and turning into boring carbon copies of each other. Then this lot came along and pretty much injected hope and energy into the guitar scene.

8 – The Candle Thieves – Pop music doesn’t have to come from reality show competitions and be pure cover version. Instead, it can be light, fluffy and really exciting. Especially with a well crafted video.

7 – Polly Scattergood – Underlooked singer songwriter who writes straight from the heart and tackles subjects from the humorous to the deep and dark. A fantastic debut album that more people need to own.

6 – Hudson Mohawke – Bubbling under the surface, the man released his first proper album after various EPs and bootleg 12”s have been doing the rounds for years. A fusion of wonky vocals meeting electronica and hip hop.

5 – One Little Plane – Cakes are delicious morsels of goodness you put in your mouth. Records by One Little Plane are the audio equivalent and won’t leave you with an expanding waistline. We only hope more material is on the way soon.

4 – Gold Panda – One of the last tips from 2009 due to him literally coming out of nowhere. 2010 looks set to be the year of the panda with more releases following a sold-out self-released CDR and 7”s.

3 – Micachu – One of the finest albums from 2009 came from Micachu. Songs packed a heavyweight punch due to the fun mix of indie, sing a long lyrics and electronica. Despite being 53 seconds long, Sweetheart is one of the best tracks on the album.

2 – Prdctv – Coming along on the folktronica tip, we are pleased to announce that the excellent recordings produced by Prdctv are now going to come out via the ace label Ninja Tune in the not too distant future. Yay!

1 – The Deer Tracks – Coming somewhere between brittle post rock and woozy electronics, the almost haunting tracks remind us immediately of Mum but with enough authority to stamp their own mark on it. And the CD packaging is the most creative we’ve seen for a while.

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Pop is a handy word, as it can be used to make other ones up!

If you’re religious for example, the simple addition of an ‘e’ will transform the word in to Pope, aka God’s best chum on earth. Other words that pop can be extended in are popcorn, poppet and populace.

In the musical sense, the word pop is shortened from the word popular. Most music in the top forty is often referred to as pop. Even though we like Jamaican funk rock, a lot of people don’t appreciate it as popular. Micachu describes her music as pop despite the music not having a cheesy gloss sprayed over it compared to music classed as ‘pop’.

To avoid the confusion we found ourselves in, Micachu is the creation of 21-year-old Mica Levy. With debut album Jewellery being written and produced by herself, there are are additional musicians helping her out. Known as The Shapes, they are a band who perform with Micachu on tour and to help create various sounds in the studio. Everything clear? Ace. Have we quite likely got something factual wrong? Probably.

Don’t let the illusion of the word pop confuse you into thinking that this is some sort of squeaky-clean record using conventional sounds and lyrics. We don’t expect to see many manufactured popstars from X Factor using vacuum cleaners or broken bottles as instruments.

Tracks such as Golden Phone are the perfect example as to why much more important people and publications are giving Micachu glowing reviews. An almost hypnotic tribal beat immediate gets the fingers tapping as chantable lyrics are echoed throughout the song. Breaking it down with what can be described as a distressed organ makes for an enjoyable listen.

This is one of many songs that feature on an album full of songs ranging from one-minute post-punk blasts to sonic waves of electronic. Lyrically, mini stories are crammed into brief three minute spaces which may not make sense to us the humble listener but can be interpreted however we see fit.

Yes, we hate building things up too soon, but this album has been on our fruit-based MP3 player for weeks. It’s quite likely to be on plenty of best-of lists at the end of the year and earn nominations at various music award shows.

Visit Micachu’s MySpace page below to check out various songs which display another British talent, videos and free mixtapes for you to download and enjoy with your stuffed animals.

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Micachu MySpace

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