Mika’s newest album is a pulse pounding techno album that will make you move your body. A little bit transcendental, a little bit jungle, Mika’s music is made for the nightclub. At 23 years-old singer, songwriter and producer Mika is willing to take chances with techno music that many others are not.
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Mika
|  Entertainment
 Art
"Life in Cartoon Motion"
(Casablanca)
Released March 27, 2007
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The songs, Mika says, are about “transitions”. For Mika that concept is true in both in his music and his personal life as well.
A native of Beirut his family moved to Paris during the height of Lebanon’s civil war. His father was taken hostage and held at the American embassy in Kuwait. The family eventually settled in London after the war. “It was the combination of moving as well as a horrible time I had at school in the first few years of living in London that led me to forget how to read and write, and stop talking for awhile” he says “this is when music really became important. It got me back on my feet.”
His single “Relax” shows the spirit that he puts into his music and clearly brings to the audience. The lyrics are meant to calm the soul and move the listener to a much better place. The chorus “Relax/ Take it easy/ for there is nothing that we can do” sucks the listener in and embraces them in a way that many electronic music artists don’t do.
With a mood that has been called simultaneously theatrical and intimate his music has a beat that is reminiscent of 90’s European techno. It is immediately catchy and I found the beats of many his songs pulsating in my head for hours after listening to his album.
One song seems to merge seamlessly into another in way that makes you wonder where one track begins and another ends. For avid techno listeners this album may feel a little by the book but there is room for improvement. Mika has a lot of potential but needs to mix it up some with his lyrics and many of his sounds.
I am reminded of such artists as DJ Harry on the west coast who has the same overall style as Mika but whose ability to transcend a particular style makes him stand out among a plethora of other DJ’s in the field. Mika, unfortunately, has a long way to go before he reaches that point.
The one catch about good techno music is that it is almost always much better in the club than it is listening to it at home. In order to get a full appreciation of Mika I think one has to see him in his natural environment of a nightclub or rave. That is where real DJ’s are at home and come out to shine.
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