“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.”

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Your SAK correspondent, who has 8.9 hours of music in his library that sorts under a search for “Jens Lekman,” got an email from Swedish label Service that he couldn’t read, and that an online translator didn’t help that much with:

“Ärade , Wes kände för a megaversion of Jens Lekmans ” ooze On the Sweet Nectar ” in widescreen THX. It was dÃ¥ wes ran pÃ¥ Stockholm rankings disco label Rollerboys Recordings , as am working hÃ¥rt and gave lÃ¥ten S.E.D.A- certificates *. Accomplishment släpps now digital pÃ¥ iTunes and Klicktrack. Swedish Epic Disco Association *”

But help is on the way. Your SAK correspondent knew were to look, and it appears that a 3-song, 25 minute remix EP of “Sipping On The Sweet Nectar” by Rollerboys is now yours for purchase and preview at Service or iTunes.

Sip away.

Well, your SAK correspondent supposes that headline isn’t really true. But it’s a minor modification of a lyric from a haunting (yes: actually haunting) man-on-man duet, “Dark And Quiet Place,” between Jens Lekman and Australian singer-songwriter Guy Blackman that Pitchfork recently posted. Blackman pretends to be sober; Lekman wears a white towel–it’s a melancholy built of details both absent and present.

Lekman, who seems to regret his decision to tour the early part of the year, has announced that his last show for the year 2008 will be a sweet summer’s night on Hammer Hill.

The Tough Alliance (TTA to their friends) have a new track, “Lucky” that trades in their more electrified sound for an acoustic approach (and have seemingly followed their fellow Swede Jens Lekman in deleting their MySpace page). Apparently a cover of a teen group called Lucky Twice, one wonders if TTA thought they could do it better themselves, just wanted to pay homage, or simply needed to further image as blissful, anarchic, weirdo-contrarians.

You’ll recall that I caught the duo at SXSW this past March. What follows are some smoke-filled pics. It made for an entertaining show, most assuredly, but your SAK correspondents already severely limited photojournalism skills were completely undercut by a little atmospherics. Check it after the jump:

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Oh, you’re so nomadic, Jens! Mr. Lekman posted one long MP3 of his February 14th (Valentine’s Day, if you’re sappy) performance in Istanbul, the show opening with the rarely played and arguably appropriate “Do Impossible Things.”Jens did impossible things last night at Bimbo’s in San Francisco, as well. Playing an unreleased number, “New Directions” if your SAK correspondent recalls correctly, that seemed to sample Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al,” Jens later went on to announce “Fuck San Francisco!” after explaining that some Italian fans told him recently after a gig that they didn’t need him to tell them now nice their city (in that case, Florence) is. “I thought they were going to kick my ass,” he explained, so he was taking the opposite position in the Bay area for the evening.

(photo credit: Jens in LA from The Rawking Refuses To Stop)

Find the rest of his tour dates here, but please don’t threaten him after the show.

The Ballet

Beat The Devil

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

Vampire Weekend / The Harlem Shakes

Jens Lekman

Greg Burgett