Thanks to Manchester City's Carlos Tevez, the snood has, of late, become an unlikely fashion item. Its appearance in rock circles is as unlikely as it is in the arena of the Premier League, and yet here is Warpaint's singing guitarist, Emily Kokal, sporting a snood over a short-sleeved T-shirt. It's just one visual clue that Warpaint do things differently to most bands. It turns out to be a prescient choice, too: the air-conditioning in this venerable Camden institution is turned up high. The audience is shivering, and that's not just down to Warpaint's eldritch, will-o'-the-wisp music.
The Los Angeles four-piece released their debut album recently, crowning months of anticipation. Much prose has been spilt in praise of the all-female quartet, formed six years ago around the nexus of guitarists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman. Setting aside Warpaint's useful connections to the film world (actress Shannyn Sossamon was a founder member) and mainstream rock (Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer was momentarily in the band), Warpaint still feel like an enticing prospect.
They are an organic, all-female outfit untroubled by the influence of Svengalis, whose music is not only artistically sound, but rather beautiful. Unlike fellow travellers Telepathe – last year's all-female, art-rock micro-sensations – Warpaint look as though they might actually sell a few records. On The Fool, Kokal and Wayman's guitars and vocals flow like mist above the rhythms of drummer Stella Mozgawa (flying dark hair, grinning) and bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg (Sossamon's sister: dungarees, girly skinhead crop).
What few have mentioned thus far is that, live, Warpaint rock. Tonight, Mozgawa and Lindberg play the kind of restless rhythms that recall the punk-funk of the Rapture. On record, their restrained dubby disco is kept in line with the demands of ethereality; onstage, they sound like a throbbing 12-inch dance remix of themselves. Or of the Cure, perhaps, whose fondness for far-off sound Warpaint echo. Or even Nirvana, whose "Come As You Are" provides the beefed-up bassline that opens "Majesty" tonight.
Thumbing their nose at conventional structures, Kokal and Wayman barely bother with chords all night: they needle and hover and wander around one another's guitar lines, never indulging in anything quite as crass as duelling. Very little in Warpaint's music repeats; it prefers to evolve. Over time, this is both refreshing and slightly frustrating.
Their final UK date is not an unqualified success. Warpaint start off shy, but end up cracking bad jokes and inviting someone to sing the opening lines of "Elephants". Warpaint's lyrics, are, of course, discernible only by osmosis, and "Elephants" was on their early EP: a tough call.
"Undertow", their most catholic song, remains Warpaint's greatest hit. You can, just about, hear the lyrics; you can, just about, sing along to the chorus. Over the course of the evening, Warpaint's shifting, meandering grooves cry out for occasional anchors such as these. You suspect Kokal and Wayman's lyrics are as intriguing as their music; raising them above the parapet would not detract from the half-lit atmosphere at which they excel.
British singer-songwriter Rumer also released a lovely debut album recently, also making good on months of hype. She too is female – a detail that becomes tediously inescapable simply because the vast majority of artists releasing records are male, and those that are not often have material written for them by male writers or producers. Although abetted by producer Steve Brown, Rumer's songs are patently her own.
Despite entire marketing departments devoted to the subject of consumer behaviour and entire gender studies departments studying difference in society, often with regard to the arts, we are probably no nearer to any understanding of whether music made by women is different to music made by men. Especially since both Rumer's classic romantic pop and Warpaint's structure-defying, dreamy un-rock can both attract the adjective "feminine".
You could sum up Rumer's elegant, old-fashioned pop as polite lady-music. It is all about emotions; it is never forceful. From the fist-bitingly cheesy title, Seasons Of My Soul, there is little in her debut that should attract hipster interest, except as a Christmas offering for a long-suffering relative. Tonight, opening up for Paolo Nutini at the annual Little Noise Sessions in aid of Mencap, Rumer wears a staid sparkly dress that seems preternaturally frumpy for a woman of her age. Her defence? "I was wary of fashion parades," she sings on "Saving Grace". "I'll never have the right shoes," she muses on "Aretha".
All this peripheral stuff melts into insignificance, though, as Rumer's flawless voice hovers exquisitely through eight of her songs. Most singers like to show off their ranges, giving rise to the ghastly ululating that has become standard on TV talent shows. But Rumer just glides along, as though half an inch above her three-piece band.
"Blackbird" provides something akin to a rush of blood to the head while her most familiar tune, "Aretha", sets heartbreak up against hope to shouts of applause, ending a run of songs as sumptuous as really, really expensive moisturiser.
