No, not another Star Trek post – I want to tell you about a fantastic band I saw last night at the historic 100 Club on Oxford St – Dark Captain Light Captain.
To use a metaphor to describe their sound, imagine two trains hurtling towards each other on a single track, on one side carrying the likes of Fairport Convention and Peter, Paul and Mary, and on the other Portishead and William Orbit. And, as they crash together, instead of the air being filled with shards of hot metal, suddenly there are rose petals and fireflies everywhere. Dark Captain Light Captain have a uniquely captivatingly soft, magical sound. Like the recently popular Fleet Foxes, their songs are full of overlapping harmonies and rhythms but there’s no dusty, bare-footed folk singing here. This is folk filtered through the lens of the big city. I really could go on for ever with praise because they’re the best thing I’ve heard in ages…
The gig itself was an unusual affair = there were three supports, only two of which we caught, Jess Bryant and Rocket Number Nine. Whilst Jess had a deep and expressive voice, her material was a bit too dark for me – she’s definitely taking a shot at the ‘Leonard Cohen’s love-child’ label. Rocket Number Nine was a single 10 minute or so rendition in a prog-rock style that had a BBC Radiophonic Workshop vibe mixed with drum ‘n’ bass rhythms. Very visceral and a bit vertigo inducing!
Of course the length of time that the supporting artists were on stage meant that unfortunately there just wasn’t enough time for Dark Captain Light Captain – I could have stood to hear another half an hour of material, even if we did get a very tongue-in-cheek rendition of Phil Collin’s ‘Easy Lover’ as the encore! I hope they give themselves more space at their next London gig, which hopefully will be very soon…
Recently signed to LOAF: Recordings, their EP ‘Circles‘ and debut album, ‘Miracle Kicker‘, are available through the usual channels, but I would recommend going through the links found on their myspace page (and which I’ve reproduced above) so that they get some credit. On the site you can also find streaming versions of some of their tracks, including the stand-out ‘Circles’ and ‘Jealous Enemies’. I’m afraid that you’ll have to buy the album to hear my current favourite though, ‘Everyone We Know’ – and I really encourage you to make the investment because their music stands up to repeated listening and, as with the best artists, as you listen your interest shifts from one track to another. I’m sure that by this time next week I’ll have a different ‘favourite’ track. Oh, hang on, I think I’m falling in love with ‘Spontaneous Combustion’ As another aside, they’re a good example of why I like CDs rather than digital downloads – the CD inserts are little pieces of art in their own right.
Oh, and on a final note, these guys are so fresh they don’t have even have an entry on Wikipedia – does anyone want to offer to help me with that task… ?
From Dark Captain Light Captain November 2008 |