CMJ ‘08: Tuesday the 21st
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008“It’s deceptively night-ish in here right now,” remarked the bass player during the afternoon set he and his mates were performing yesterday at the Cakeshop. Women, an all-dude quartet from an Alberta, Canada, was offering, during an appreciably prompt 4:30 start time, its jagged indie updates on the work of its fore bearers, principally The Velvet Underground and The Zombies.
It was a reasonably tame show, for certain, but one crowd member spat out an emphatic “woop!” as the guitar player lead into “Black Rice” from its buzzy two-tone starting point. The set was appreciably varied, with the main vocalist singing a long stretch over a skronky and unchanging anti-chord on his guitar, and the drummer occasionally matching melodic wits with his stringed cohorts by tapping out patterns on a glockenspiel. The group shifted from molding a messy and beautiful gel (”Group Transport Hall”) to being spectacularly intricate without it ever reaching pomposity or superfluousness. Women is playing a great many times this week, and anyone doing serious CMJing is highly advised to catch an encore set.
Jens Lekman and The So So Glos each also offered exceptional shows that, unfortunately, won’t be reprised this week, and both of which carried late into the night. Lekman had promised a “singing DJ” set for the 11 slot of the Brooklyn Vegan showcase at the Music Hall Of Williamsburg. He came out to spin a good 45 minutes later than listed (a frustratingly standard occurrence at most CMJ shows). The recently-imported-to-Brooklyn Swede didn’t sing much at first, perhaps crooning a bit to Lykke Li’s “Dance Dance Dance” (even if mostly off mic) before moving on to Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” and a track from his Gothenburg pals The Tough Alliance. Jens looked lost in his own nectar-sweetened world for most of the set, headphones over his ears as he spun from a colorfully lit back corner of the stage. He came forward to croon over renditions of his own tunes (kicking off his mini-set “Into Eternity”) before getting raptastic with some Kid Sister and a remixed-with-samples-Jens-has-used pass at R. Kelly’s and Ludacris’ verses from “Rockstar.”
