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.

Nick Oliveri
Six Shooters
[Bootleg of 15/11/02 Berlin acoustic show]

The original version on QOTSA’s Songs for the Deaf was a throwaway piece of noisy punk which swung between sub-stereo speaker damage and blasts of Ween noise. This ‘one man and his battered acoustic’ live version sees Oliveri rely more on tension, melody and camp rather than mic shaking screams. Sliding from a sensible singing voice through whispers and a dodgy falsetto to one final scream, he allows the rise and fall of the main guitar line to take center stage, fully revealing the song as the strange belligerent cowboy blues song it was born to be.
[Scott McKeating]

Six By Seven
Ready For You Now
[Saturday Night Sunday Morning, 2004]

After losing two band members and a label, you'd think notoriously negative Nottingham indie outfit Six.By Seven would be even more angry. But no, while the Dave Fridmann-produced "Ready For You Now" does boast a customarily rich organ/guitar drone, it's actually pretty uplifting—Chris Olley actually sounds content, and the result is their best single since "New Year". B-sides "She Didn't Say" and "Pretty Baby", meanwhile, are obvious but enjoyable homages to Spacemen 3, notably mostly for the way "Pretty Baby" plays for five minutes and then plays for five minutes more, backwards.
[Ian Mathers]

John Wiese/Daniel Menche
Behold The Scathing Light 3" CD
[Helicopter, 2004]

“Is Colleen in the shower?”
[silence]
“Oh, wait. That’s your music.”

This is my girlfriend’s friend’s brief assessment of both Behold the Scathing Light and my tastes in general. And while to the untrained ear this might sound like a woman in the shower, the accomplished noise listener—and one quite familiar with each of these artists—will recognize it more as an electronic drone; a rather musical one at that. Heavy on the Menche and light on Wiese’s usual harshness, the mail collaboration is exceptionally beautiful. Highly recmmended for those who like their experimental music with hints of melody and without the ferocity.
[Mike Shiflet]

Nurse with Wound / Cyclobe
Paraparaparallelogrammatica
[Angry Eelectric Finger (Spitch'cock One), 2004]

Walls of heavy synths rise like neon drilled constructions through cloud as shuttles rip through the lower atmosphere, glowing red as they disappear into the vapour. Or, if you prefer, Cyclobe take apart and smear a slab of Stapleton’s homemade noise from the insides out. What could have been a dismal drone fest a la Coil’s Time Machine project rams murky orchestration behind swirling electronics creating a thick dirty atmosphere of threat. Orchestral peaks fade in and out whilst shards and splinters of rippling digital glass rip tiny shreds from the industrial pulsing. An excellent meeting of the minds.
[Scott McKeating]

The Radio Dept
Why Won't You Talk About It?
[Rex, 2004]

While the hammering drum machine and occasional guitar squeals of the opening title track lead you to expect yet another Jesus And Mary Chain homage, the other three tracks here are much drowsier (even the noisy “Libeling”). Johan Duncanson’s vocals are vaguely Gibbardish, albeit drowned under static and blur, and some bits even sound acoustic before the lo-fi tide washes over them. It’s all over in twelve minutes, which is probably for the best. An entire album of this would get tiresome. At this length, though, it’s just perfect for a cloudy afternoon.
[Ian Mathers]

Secret Mommy
Hawaii 5.0
[Ache, 2004]

Hawaii is, indeed, a beautiful place, but it's also a bit crazy. It's filled with people escaping the pressures and hassles of modern life in order to live in a tropical paradise and sell jewelry or sugar cane or pot—whatever pays the bills so they don't have to leave. Secret Mommy's latest EP is, I think, a tribute to this weird, wonderful place. Hawaii 5.0 takes field recordings of seagulls, blenders, beach balls, people slicing up and eating pineapples, pouring and sipping drinks, and playing ukeleles and steel drums and then cuts them up, mixes them around, and blends them into something that feels like Hawaii (you can still hear bits and pieces of steel drum sounds and ocean waves), only it's a Hawaii that's been sped up to fifteen times its normal speed. In other words, it's Hawaii in speed. It's cool.
[Michael Heumann]