The Rubber Room column is a weekly look at recent and notable releases that don’t fall into the rubric of traditional reviewed material—namely 7”’s, 12”’s, 3” CDs, EPs, cassette-only, DVDs and MP3-only releases.

2Pac
Hit ‘Em Up 12"
[Death Row, 2004]

“They tried to ban this song, they don’t wanna play my song, but they wanna play fat boy (Biggie Smalls) all goddam day”. Could it be because you lied about having sex with his wife and then threatened to shoot him and cut up his friends on the record? Is there anyone who feels that they honestly missed out by not catching 2Pac rhyme over stagnant instrumentals while the Outlawz bawl all over each other’s verses making them near incomprehensible? Any aggressive energy this song might’ve had is sapped by the irritating chaos that builds as the song barrels on towards a flat finish.
[Scott McKeating]

Nicedisc
DVD
[RebuildAllYourRuins, 2004]

You’ve surely seen cliche images of stoners or likewise absent-minded teens in a complete daze staring into a television set. Well, anyone who hasn’t turned Nicedisc’s DVD off after five minutes, is sure to look exactly like one of them. Never before has an optical illusion seemed more like a horrible retinal lie. DVD is nothing short of an intense mind game; one where the eyes and brain (and, to a lesser extent, ears) try mercilessly to psych each other out. Nearly every color in the spectrum saturates the screen, and the viewer is left alone to figure which are really there and which are tricks of the optic nerve. Likewise, while the three pieces fade and flicker to their electro-acoustic soundtrack, the fields of solid color seem to break down into forms and shapes. Less pristine and more frightening, the four short bonus pieces in black and white show more crossover between the audio and visual aspects and I have a feeling future offerings will be more along those lines. By placing this disc in your player you become a victim of your own will. Epileptics beware.
[Mike Shiflet]

Avarus
Vaahtera Jäniksen hännänkieliset seikkailut 7”
[Audiobot/Gold Soundz/Humbug/Imvated/Veglia, 2004]

Avarus’ music is the definition of potting-shed music, a gang of troglodytes battering along with the instrument closest to hand. This approach can lead the outfit up all kinds of blind alleys, but when things coalesce, Avarus essay a convincing slice of freedom. On this single a deep bed of squeaking string instruments simmers away, repeatedly slicking its acid tongue all over the skins of home-made drums. Both sides of the record have their charms, and the silk-screened and textured cover is beautiful, but Avarus work better in full flight extendo-mode (read: check their cassettes and albums first.)
[Jon Dale]

Crankst Urge On
E-Z Voiceover Box-Top Living Solutions 7”
[Humbug, 2004]

Anyone who dug through the Muckraker reviews section in the late 1990s would remember Crank Sturgeon. And if the underground now crows over teams of wanna-be stoners clutching Cro-Magnon and Vashti Bunyan reissues to their collective breast, no-one told the Sturgeon; on this single for Humbug, he’s as reliably non-linear as ever, repeatedly emptying the contents of his cutlery drawer over a glass work-bench while spluttering and chattering away like an angry Phil Minton. On the b-side, the Sturgeon talks us through his clutch notes. In some parallel universe (perhaps the one where Seymour Glass is President of the USA) this is single of the year, every year.
[Jon Dale]

Hisato Higuchi
She CD-EP
[Ghost Disc, 2004]

Hisato Higuchi’s debut EP takes slow, deep breaths and then exhales all over the strings of his muffled, reverb-drenched guitar. Split between instrumental miniatures, electronics spillage, and stoned-circular song-forms, She is perfectly rendered late-night vision—the blurred, trailing lights of the front cover perfectly reflect Higuchi’s songs. Higuchi’s voice is as ephemeral and star-struck as Skip Spence’s eery falsetto, sighing over simple three-chord mantras that hang heavy and limp-lidded. Each song is repeatedly scored with analogue circuitry, leaving track-marks over the surface. Don’t be fooled by the drowsy, limpid tenor of these performances: Higuchi’s debut is a resilient and singular recording.
[Jon Dale]

Undo and Vicknoise
Happy Monday EP
[Factor City, 2004]

Deep sea-diving acid melodies and basslines color the lumbering melancholy shuffle of the title track, while “Welcome” wears its synthetic heart on its sleeve. “The Sparrow” doesn’t quite match up, telegraphing the shuffle too heartily, but its wandering strings nearly make you forget. It’s probably telling that “Happy Monday”’s invocation is the saddest that you’ll ever hear it uttered and that “Welcome”’s synth blasts wash, rather than attack, but Undo and Vicknoise don’t tell you things. They make you feel things. Possibly my favorite single of this year.
[Todd Burns]