Women: "Bullfight"

If Women are dead, let’s hope their after-life is filled with strange hauntings like “Bullfight”—one of their very loveliest songs. (Thus explaining entirely its exemption from any proper release.) A plaintive bass-drum interplay evokes Brill Building pop before dissonant chimes and Flegel’s flower-frosting monotone descend; lo, it’s a Women song. All the taut rhythmic hallmarks of their sound appear fully formed here, with surprising pitch-changes, fog-filled alleyways of reverb, and endless lovely bridges heading nowhere, like a wandering first night in Amsterdam. The moment the icily beautiful coda takes root—a simple guitar line that utterly recasts the 3:30 that preceded it—the track begins to fade softly off. And it’s gone the moment you realize it was there.