Stepping – okay, perhaps “ tripping” is a better word – into Pop Levi’s phantasmagorically unhinged universe is, by turns, a thrilling and disorienting experience. Last seen hefting a bass with Ladytron, Levi moves beyond dreary UK indie cliches on his debut album, The Return To Form Black Magic Party, tipping his Mad Hatter cap to ‘60s whimsy, California psychedelia and acid-steeped avant-folk. Quite what he’s singing about on songs such as ‘Sugar Assault Me Now’, ‘Pick Me Up Uppercut’ and ‘Blue Honey‘ isn’t entirely clear – Levi claims his lyrics come to him via a process of mystical ‘scrying’ and, goodness, it shows.
Eyes rimmed in kohl, bowl cuts executed with fascistic precision, Levi and his band suggest a fantasy rock ‘n’ roll union between Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow and several of Kubrick’s Droogs. Playfully melodic the music may be on record but, live, Levi gives his songbook an unsparing makeover; gentle strums are reworked into quaking riffs, acid dabs become a departure point for madcap jams. Amplifying this sense of theatricality gone weird, Levi addresses the crowd in a faint Liverpool burr, an accent that feels more Yellow Submarine than scouser lilt. But Levi only moved to Liverpool as a 19-year-old and, several hours before the show, was to be heard conversing in flat estuary tones. Could the accent, like the hair and the eye-liner, be integral to the pantomime?
Sometimes ambition threatens to get the better of Levi. Glitterball Bolan homage ‘Dollar Bill Rock’, for instance, lingers for at least twice as long as it should, clocking in, as it does, at nearly six minutes. Showering your audience in whimsy is one thing – straining their patience with glam leftovers is altogether less forgivable. Ultimately, in fact, the suspicion is that Levi can’t really decide whether he wants to be a day-glo Dylan, a guitar-toting Willy Wonka or Beck’s wackier younger brother. Still, watching him trying to puzzle it all out makes for an enthralling evening. Welcome, people, to the dark side of the loon.