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 and MP3-only releases.

What Made Milwaukee Famous
Trying Never To Catch Up
[Self-Released, 2004]

As a stand-alone album, Trying Never To Catch Up is an upbeat collection of all your favorite pop and indie-pop signifiers: The Beatles, Radiohead, The Wrens and Namelessnumberheadman all shuffle in, at some point, to rear their heads. As an audition for an indie label contract, it’s even better. You could easily see someone like Absolutely Kosher, Barsuk or even Sub Pop putting out their next long player and all the kids lauding the rarely heard debut because of those MP3’s they downloaded a few weeks before. Get up on it, before they get up on The OC and you have to lie to your friends that you knew them way back when.
[Todd Burns]

Jesu
Ruined (EP track)
[Dry Run, 2004]

An eleven minute sample of a twenty minute track that will form the flipside of Justin Broadrick’s forthcoming EP under his post-Godflesh alias. Now that he doesn’t have Techno Animal eating up his studio time anymore maybe we can get back down to some serious low-end crushing again. Warming up with some nice string plucking and piano tinkling, it’s not long till it gives way to a dirty fat pig of a Sabbath groove over which he croons and then roars before settling back into a quieter hypnotic looping piece. Thank Christ for the grind.
[Scott McKeating]

Matthew Jonson
Behind the Mirror/Decompression 12”
[Sub Static/Minus, 2004]

A mainstay on tech-house mixes for the past year because of the lovely “Typerope”, it’s the will o’ the wisp Oribtal-isms that are the key melodic element on Jonson’s newest 12”, his first for the Cologne based Sub Static label. The whole thing comes together, though, when the bassline drops in both songs, adding the connective tissue that was implied from the beginning. The B-side sounds a tad like Metro Area, if they were anymore minimal and weren’t so love with, say, the hand claps. Jonson’s talent is in the bass, so listen carefully. And on “Decompression”, out on Richie Hawtin’s label (so hype away, kids) he lets it get me(n)tal, as it threatens to destroy anything in its path and fuck all the groupies after the show. Now, if we could only get a full-length outta this guy.
[Todd Burns]

Korn
Word Up
[Immortal/Epic, 2004]

A straightforward reading of the Cameo classic by a band whose creative energy was spent three albums ago. Their last single “Y'all Want a Single” railed against their record company for pushing them to come up with some commercial shit; this is the sound of Jonathan Davis and company bending over to MTV and radio with a big red target painted on their arses. This is as average as the Spice Girls attempt and worse than Gun’s 1994 rock version. Apparently Korn’s 2004 hits compilation will be titled Vol. 1. Bets on seeing a Vol.2 anyone?
[Scott McKeating]

Cradle of Filth
Gilded Cunt (Free MP3 from forthcoming Nymphetamine LP)
[Roadrunner, 2004]

“Your misery is worn as a veil to hide bewitchment of the ugliest kind / In place of Eve a bitter parody hails Daggers from the swagger of a sodomite's concubine”. Those are some damn fine opening lines, followed from the potty mouth of CoF’s Dani Filth by a screeched, but very comprehensible chorus featuring that most dirty of all swear words. Bye-bye overbearing Transylvanian orchestra. Hello much more enjoyable stripped metal feel. This Summer get ready to smear your breasts in fake blood in a moonlit glade dressed in leather.
[Scott McKeating]

Apparat
Shapemodes EP
[Neo Ouija, 2004]

Unsurprisingly, all of the music on this new EP for the haven of soft-glitch electronics was composed in 2001. Surprisingly, it sounds fresher than most anything that’s come out since then in the genre aside from Apparat’s own Duplex. On tap: gorgeous melodies, stuttering and kaleidoscopic rhythms and a joyful glee in what could have been for Autechre if they’d taken the road more easily traveled. And, you know, why not? Apparat and others are releasing the sorts of records that should have been the obvious and easy continuations of a certain type of IDM that floundered under the weight of its own gear and expectation.
[Todd Burns]