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, and MP3 only releases.

M.I.A.
Galang 12”
[Showbiz Records, 2004]

Sri Lanka born Maya Arul, a refugee from that country’s varied and violent domestic troubles during the 80s, fired out her debut single on Showbiz earlier this year, the ferociously wonderful “Galang”. A kind of Bhangra/Dancehall/Hip Hop/Punk/Electronica/Ragga fusion, “Galang” is a complete sense overload, nonsense lyrics about London calling and a purple haze and someone in a BMW, more bounce and boom per square inch than Barnes Wallis’ bomb, whur and bleep and buzz, and Maya over the top, delicious and insane. The chanted coda might be the most joyous minute of music released this year.
[Nick Southall]

Various Aritsts
Relax (The Full Story)
[V/Vm Test, 2003]

Anything but childish (recent chicken pox bouts notwithstanding), V/VM gives Frankie their usual cut-up treatment. This time, though, the label was listening. And is not too happy. It’s unclear as to what might happen to this release—as it stands now, it’s been deleted from the label’s website and its destruction at the hands of ZTT and EMI who apparently requested that the destroyed copies be sent to them afterwards. Musically, it’s about as essential as the 20-something mixes of the original (24 here), but legally it just might be the hottest thing since U2 vs. Negativland.
[Todd Burns]

Coil
Black Antlers (Tour CDR)
[Threshold House, 2004]

Black Antlers is shorter, less droney (despite what the first half of opener “The Gimp (Sometimes)” may lead you to assume) and a much more instantly rewarding experience than recent work. It retains the edgier crabwise experimental touches while within much more commodious soundscapes. Balance’s bi-polar magpie vocal style is evident on “Sex with Sun Ra (Part 1 - Saturnalia)” and is, as ever, intriguing and beguiling. So far only available on the scattered live dates of their Even an Evil Fatigue tour, this is an “album-in-progress” release of a yet to be “finalised, definitive ‘studio’ version” (possibly titled The Ape of Naples). Your guess is as good as mine as to what will remain, if anything, on the full release. That being said, this is some of their strongest material ever and bodes well for a project and musical relationship that many believed was on its last legs.
[Scott McKeating]

Edward Ruchalski
Having it Out
[PseudoArcana, 2004]

Time spent wood-shedding has lent Edward Ruchalski’s work an adroit sense of sound placement, and his work is singularly decisive. The incessant roll of percussion and metallics that puncture Part Two of this suite reminds me of Organum, or Mirror; Ruchalski’s work is similarly eloquent, concerned with narrative propulsion that evokes some kind of displacement or transitory emotional resonance. The transparency of Ruchalski’s sound treatments lends everything the kind of hard-cranked mystery that usually comes from years of continual self-definition. If this were on Streamline, the Current & Ka-Spel crew would be losing their collective laundry. For now, Ruchalski is our secret.
[Jon Dale]

White Mice
Mouse of Mendes EP
[Self-Released, 2004]

After an intro of playful electronic squiggles, Mouse of Mendes lurches into a storm of heavy, distorted bass, blast beats and swirling electronic noise. This is essentially the White Mice's MO: metal riffs, sickening feedback, twitch-inducing drums and vocals distorted beyond recognition. Sonically, the tracks tend to blur together, though "Mousecoma" works as an intermission, a relatively relaxed mixture of hazy drones and delayed vocals. The two tracks that follow ("What Vice?" and "The Maze") both feature excellent riffs tied to unconventional drumming, are the standouts designed to trick you—you'll start headbanging, but find yourself soon confused by the abrupt changes. An excellent debut.
[Ian Johnson]

Taku Unami / Mark Wastell
Small Sounds in a Quiet Round (CDr)
[Hibari, 2003]

Ultra-quietists Unami and Wastell whisper from beneath the sort of all-consuming silences that inspire equal degrees awe and cynicism from listeners. The vast majority of the world’s rooms are simply too loud to sustain their music—its miniscule tears and fractures merge with the creaks of settling foundations and drown beneath the most gentle winds. Fortunately, this particular sliver fits perfectly into the quiet space between air conditioner cycles or spring showers. Wastell’s contact mics and Unami’s pinprick electronics echo the strained steps of expiring insects in a room that’s as silent as the grave—a sterile, fragile drama in the vein of the finest Beckett. Simply gorgeous.
[Joe Panzner]

Engineers
Home
[Echo, 2004]

Oceanic? Yes and no. The layers of shimmering keys, hazy, infinitely-reverbed guitar, heartbeat kick drums and dappled, slow-focus harmonies, timelessly decaying cymbals certainly add up to an enormous, balming sound, but there is a level of the intimate here as well as the epic. Like a single droplet of water falling into a lake and sending concentric ripples across the entire surface, with Engineers one tiny momentum and detail affects all around it. Marking Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue and Talk Talk’s Spirit Of Eden as inspirations, the release of “Home” marks the beginning of what could be a wonderful career for Manchester’s Engineers.
[Nick Southall]

Masahiko Okura
Solo (CDr)
[Hibari, 2003]

Recorded against the ambient murmur of cars outside, Okura’s solo saxophone explorations operate like a cautious animal stalked by predators in the dead of night. Opening with a probing single-note cries and gradually retreating into pitter-patter abstraction, Okura’s constant paring of his saxophone’s gulps and plunks lends an impression of close, vigilant examination. The impression is one of Okura shrinking from his horn’s louder and more literal tones and uncovering the secret paths between their constantly threatening presence. The closing merger of throbbing pedal tones and traffic noise suggests that Okura prefers the chameleon’s mode of escape—fuse with the environment and linger until the threat passes.
[Joe Panzner]

Consequence feat. Q-Tip
The Consequences
[Sure Shot Recordings, 2004]

Most famous for being Q-Tip’s cousin and being under the aegis of Kanye West as a member of his Kon Man Crew (he also had a guest spot on College Dropout’s “Spaceship”), Consequence has some smart lines and rhymes but his flow is pretty one dimensional and sometimes it’s hard to pick out all the words on the first pass. Very nice beat though. It’s one of those classic Jay Dee productions that made the Amplified album such a vibrant thing; a tight simple drum pattern, live bass and some swinging rolling keys which creates a spare but undeniably nodding groove.
[Scott McKeating]