CAP PAS CAP
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HAUNTED LIGHT - PRESS RELEASE
Cap Pas Cap make music laced with tension and unease, driven by propulsive motorik rhythms, skittering guitar, cascading synth sounds and insouciant vocals. Yet amidst the maelstrom of this dark-wave sonic assault they retain an uncanny pop sensibility at their core. Cap Pas Cap don’t just want to party, they want to party hard and deep into the night.
Haunted Light, their debut album, is a product of this paradox - darkness | light : being | not being : quiet | loud - with the tension of such oppositional forces finding resolution somehow through the music. Early tracks such as Mirrors and We Are Men, deliver short sharp manifestos of the Cap Pas Cap sound, before the album takes a vertiginous trip downwards into the dark atmospheric vortex of Ship Shadow. With its insistent swirls of electronic noise, Ship Shadow pulls the listener inexorably into its dreamscape; a throbbing industrial head-trip that wouldn’t be out of place in a Gasper Noé film. In contrast its melancholy counterpoint Hearts is absolutely controlled dream pop, with gossamer instrumentation complementing the delicate vocal as it glides elegantly towards a conclusion. In between is the succinct dancefloor vérité of Friends, a jerky brisk interlude that anticipates the urgent triple-pronged avant pop of Can’t Say, Brand New Town and Y Lies. Y Lies in particular begins like a demented outcast, wilfully dissonant and angular, before evolving into a rhythmic pop beast - but only ever on its own terms. Penultimate track Save our Sights is a further demonstration of Cap Pas Caps knack for building a song around an insistent pop hook and is aided by a sophisticated production which echoes the work of Martin Hannett in his heyday. This would be a fitting end until you hear actual closing track Night Tribes, a tribal motorik coda closing Haunted Light with a heady flourish.
While their antecedents can be traced back to a post punk milieu and the creative vapour trails that followed, Cap Pas Cap do not simply ape their heroes. Rather, through a distillation of influences they have arrived at a sound and dynamic that is wholly and unmistakeably their own.
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"Edgy, daring and sparky, Dublin band Cap Pas Cap play a hugely alluring post-everything game. There has only been a handful of releases to date, but each one has seen them pulling new shapes from the bag. Their best moment to date was last year’s hypnotic and spacey We Are Men single on the Skinny Wolves label, a pointer to the new-wave-no-wave-what-wave terrain they’re calling their own. Cap Pas Cap’s debut album should be one of this year’s highlights." - Irish Times, Jim Carroll
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"Dublin's Cap Pas Cap are an enigmatic and mysterious band. They are one of the best Irish bands around. Problem is, they are rarely around. The rarely play gigs and rarely release any music. Whether this is due to writer's block, other band commitments or simple laziness, I don't know.
It is a great pity though, as in their limited numbers of releases, they have shown great originality and song writing in a number of different styles.
In a seemingly effortless way, they have released an EP 'Not Not Is Fine' which showed a mastery of krautrock-influenced new wave, and judicious use of cowbell. They returned with the fantastic electro-rock EP 'We Are Men'. The problem is that the former was released in 2006 and the latter in November 2008.
The 12" featured fantastic remixes by Jape, Decal, and thatboytim. The excellent video was the winner of Best Production/Special Effects Video at the Irish Music Television Awards 2009. Their long, long awaited debut album was originally penciled in for late 2009 but is now due out this summer.
They released their two EPs on the excellent Dublin label Skinny Wolves, home to luminaries such as Telepathe, Indian Jewelry and Effi Briest. Their other release was a split 7" with guitar heroine Marnie Stern, which was released on the Hidden Hive label." - CORK Independent
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/////////////////// Previous Releases
We Are Men 12" : Skinny Wolves Records
Marnie Stern / Cap Pas Cap - Split 7" (Kissing Kin 7" Series): Hidden Hive Records
Not Not Is Fine 12" : Skinny Wolves Records
Not Not Is Fine CD : Rallye / Klee Records