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Gig Review
Women/ My Sad Captains London, Windmill
Article written by
Ged M - Dec 14, 2008
Mr Ed, My Sad Captains
Funny how your assumptions are sometimes confounded. For a midweek gig involving a barely known Canadian band on cult label Jagjaguwar and a London indie band with two singles under their belt there are an awful lot of people who don’t look as if they venture to Brixton often (maybe the Windmill was doing an exchange with the Macbeth tonight and sent all its Pedigree-supping regulars north of the river). They get their money’s worth though, whatever their reasons for being there. My Sad Captains are getting us all nicely moist for their forthcoming album with their buoyant, melody-packed pop with an elegiac edge; the joyous ‘la la las’ and guitar freakout in ‘All Hats and No Plans’ and the swooning ‘Here and Elsewhere’ are standouts, although there’s the smidgen of suggestion of prog-pop in some of the playing. Just bring on that album as man can’t live on two singles alone.
Women
Women like noise - white noise, feedback, hiss and reverb – but they don’t use it gratuitously. They’re integral parts of their songs but are used unpredictably, to create an off-centre psychedelic feel. Frequently a song will take off in a riot of oppressive noise and suddenly resolve into a hooky pop tune – or vice versa. The most obvious exception is the wonderful ‘Black Rice’, an iPod advert theme in the making and a natural Shins-style single, complete with woozy rhythms and harmonies. They play a breathtakingly good set, and the office crowd force an encore out of them, before finishing their Bacardi breezers and fading away into the cold Brixton night. Let’s hope Women at least come back soon.