Magick man

>> Pop Levi channels the best in glam rock and genie bop

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

When Pop Levi talks about magick, he’s really referring to the mathematics of music, the strange science that makes his glam rock/genie bop possible. And when he mentions channelling, he means he’s borrowing a cup of alchemical power from the past, from Eddie Cochran, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Marc Bolan, Syd Barrett, Led Zeppelin, Captain Beefheart, Marvin Gaye, Prince and the White Stripes. He’s not actually summoning and speaking for the dead.

“No, I don’t believe in that stuff,” he says. “I do believe in it, but I don’t imagine that the spirit of Jimi Hendrix is with me when I’m playing.”

Born Jonathan Pop Levi in London, the singer-songwriter is said to have studied piano at the age of three, joined a gospel choir at seven and started collecting records at nine. More recently, he co-founded a “cosmic rock” act called Super Numeri, a trio who lived together in a Liverpool commune, and made a pair of albums for Ninja Tune in 2003 and 2005. Levi initially intended to release his solo material through Invicta Hi-Fi, the label operated by Ladytron’s Danny Hunt (Levi toured the world with Ladytron in 2003 and 2004, playing bass), but his debut EP, Blue Honey, wound up being the flagship record for Counter, a Ninja Tune offshoot founded specifically for him. Levi’s glam swagger and pop dynamite (backed live by his four-piece band, Woman) caught the attention of music lovers on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as the Pacific—he’s living in L.A. now, gaining ground in Australia, and he’s bound to be big in Japan.

Musical influences aside, Levi’s debut LP, The Return to Form Black Magick Party, was inspired by a technique called scrying, invented by Elizabethan-era astrologer and “magickian” Dr. John Dee, on whom Shakespeare’s Prospero was based. The traditional form of scrying, or crystal-gazing, involves staring at cracked glass or saucers of water until your mind (or something else?) begins to make suggestions.

“I’ve taken it to another level and invented something called audio scrying,” says Levi, explaining the ceremonial gathering (aka party) he hosted in Liverpool that produced his curious, convoluted album title. “It was essentially an audio scrying session [using aural instead of visual stimuli]. You could be in a jungle, or on a mountaintop, any space that produces an ambient hum, and your brain falls into a meditative state. The title of the record came to me that night—someone whispered it in my ear.”

Levi has described this someone, in previous interviews, as a fairy, or an angel named Zeron. But whether the source of his titles, lyrics and music is celestial, astral, animal, vegetable or mineral (or herbal, or chemical), it’s clearly bigger than a breadbox. Moreover, it’s helped produce a fine, flashy LP, or two—Levi’s next album is already written and set to record.

“It’s called NeverNeverLove,” he says, “and hopefully it’ll sound like Quincy Jones producing a death metal band.”

WITH SIMON FINN AND THE SUNDAY
SINNERS AT CABARET DU MUSÉE JUSTE
POUR RIRE ON SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 9 P.M., $12