Never

The previous outing from experimental pop artist Micachu (a.k.a. Mica Levi) was a live collaboration with the London Sinfonietta called Chopped & Screwed. As mind-boggling as that record is, Never perhaps tops it as another stellar mark in the musical prodigy’s career. This record neatly continues her evolution as an avant-gardist who finds rhythm in the darnedest places and casually integrates musical ideas rooted in punk, classical, and jazz. She and her band serve up oddball tones and oscillations on homemade instruments, arrange songs as if they’re shaped to fit a Dali landscape, and sculpt visceral textures out of clanging metal, bizarrely tuned strings, and wooden objects, turning out surprisingly memorable melodies in the process. “Easy,” “Never," and “Waste” are strong enough individually, but their back-to-back chunky beats and neon-coated guitar and synth fuzz pull in listeners with surety. From the swaggering junkyard funk of “Slick” and the mechanical grind of “Heaven” to the watery keyboard vertigo on “Nothing” and the floorboard-carving, raw groove of “You Know,” Never is never boring.