Credit: Found On Internet

It’s only through a series of fortuitous co-incidences that Kono Michi was detected by Music Towers antennas – while writing a piece for some other website or other about her label mates, way-out-there Scots-types The Stark Palace, led us to this, the debut Kono Michi EP. And a mighty strange but welcome thing it is too. The alter ego of Michi Wiancko – who’s been a solo violinist for both the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras - Kono Michi produces violin-based trip-hop that falls somewhere between Bjork at her most lo-fi, creeping all the way to the feet of Portishead when they are at their least miserable.

Lead track, ‘When I Don’t Come Back’, uses the violin to create a shimmering surface tension that a series of xylophone notes penetrate like aural raindrops. Add to this vocals that sound like a spectre singing a ghostly lullaby, and you’ve got something very ethereal indeed.

The disturbing video for ‘When I Don’t Come Back’:

‘One More Day’ feels like the colour of a grey sky while it rains, only to spark up suddenly, like a brief glimpse of a shaft of sunlight as the weather breaks. ‘Dark Eyes´, might start gently, but soon cranks up the grim thump-thud beats over strings that half sound like they come straight out of a Japanese folk myth, half from a long-forgotten ancient Egyptian epic. The EP’s final track, ‘In A Lake’, layers electronic-sounding chimes over a background of subdued but scratchy beats. Noticeably gentler than the rest of the EP, Wiancko’s violin comes to the fore and ends the EP with a feeling of subdued optimism.

Talent – there, I’ve said it – is something that is simultaneously misunderstood, misappropriated and misapplied by commentators at every level. Whichever new indie buck that’s just written a song that’s even coughs in the direction of radio-play is mistakenly hailed as a ‘genius’. People clap and whoop at whichever karaoke-queen has just stepped off the X-Factor conveyor belt of averageness. Well, Kono Michi does have genuine talent. With The Livingroom Disappearance, she has crafted an EP that takes one area of virtuosity – her violin playing – and matches it with a voice and an ear for unique songwriting. Music Towers will await her next release in earnest.