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.

Pixeltan
Get Up / Say What
[DFA, 2004]

Pixeltan are the latest of the DFA's discopunk disciples, made up of ex-Black Dice drummer Hisham Bharoocha and ex-Plale Tectonics Devin Flynn and Mika Yoneta. Their recent 12" is fairly characteristic of the DFA sound—dubby bass laid down thick over Hisham's disco rhythms and punctuated by Mika's breathy exhortations. The a-side features both "Get Up / Say What" and its extended DFA remix, but the four-minute version is plenty, and there isn't enough variation in the DFA's surprisingly faithful remix to warrant its nine-minute length. The b-side, "That's the Way I Like It," is less dance-friendly, opting instead for Mu-like quirkiness on what is essentially a throwaway track. The DFA haven't expanded their sound much here, but it's still another worthwhile entry in their increasingly legendary canon, and the musicianship is tight enough to merit attention paid to Pixeltan in the future.
[Andrew Unterberger]

Keith Fullerton Whitman
Schöner Fluβengel
[Kranky, 2004]

Begun when Whitman assumed a Harvard lecturer position and gained access to the University’s sound labs, the six mercurial compositions on Schöner Flußengel (pronounced “shooner floos-engel” and German for “beautiful river angel”), the thirty-three minute follow-up to Whitman’s Antithesis, are experimental, disturbing, and sometimes so relentless they verge on unpleasant. With its acoustic guitar picking, tom-tom patterns, and spooky string scrapings, “Lixus (Version Analogique)” could pass for a Set Fire To Flames improv, while its more hallucinatory variation “Lixus (Version Numerique)” besieges the acoustic guitar picking with noisy poundings and a frightening wail. Equally challenging are “Gravicembalo col Piano e Forte” with its prickly electronics and seething shards and “Bewusstseinserweiternd Tonaufnahme (Einter & Zweiter Teile)” which blends throat singing drones, Reichian patterns, and bell clatter into a tumultuous brew. Only “Weiter” flirts with conventionality, its melancholy themes voiced by clavinet, piano, and organ.
[Ron Schepper]

Lars Horntveth
The Joker
[Smalltown Supersound, 2004]

Kieran Hebden’s contribution to this single (CD and 12”) from Jaga Jazzist leader Horntveth may be the drawing card for some listeners but in fact the freer-floating “Tics (Four Tet Remix)” proves the least memorable of the single’s tracks. Oh, it’s credible enough and offers strong contrast with the others but it’s the beautiful title track that impresses most. Following a slide guitar intro, the bass clarinet voices the song’s wistful theme against glitchy beats, marimbas, and bowed cellos before ceding the spotlight to a nine-piece string ensemble. Per Martinsen’s ‘Mental Overdrive’ remix emphasizes the track’s funkier side yet wisely retains the original’s lovely chord sequence and dreamy theme. (Incidentally, “Tics” and “The Joker” both appear on Horntveth’s solo debut Pooka.)
[Ron Schepper]

Jeff Samuel
Awt
[Spectral, 2004]

Seattle-based Jeff Samuel delectably fuses artful nuance with funky danceability on Awt’s meticulously crafted tracks. The intricately layered microhouse of “Moniss” and combustible, trance-inducing “The Zoop” both satisfy, but it’s the opening pieces that really impress. The title track’s beautifully modulated opening of sparse synth accents, reverberant thwacks, and minimal bass lines gradually deepens into a skipping groove of electronic squawks and spectral flurries, while “Heb.Gbz” sweetens rubbery rhythms with snippety, scissors-like patterns and then peppers them with sparse bleeps, whirrs, and shimmers. Awt ably showcases Samuel’s consummate talent for imbuing machine music with sensuality and warmth.
[Ron Schepper]

McEnroe
Working In The Factory
[Vertical Form, 2004]

Dope slice of vinyl hip-hop from Vancouver-based McEnroe who waxes nostalgic on the A side’s downtempo “Working In The Factory” and then raises the roof with the flip’s boisterous “Party People” (the 12” includes instrumental versions too). Recalling simpler and more innocent times “when life was in black and white and people knew wrong from right,” McEnroe strikes an epistemological pose (“Is this really how it was or I am a being naïve?”) atop laconic head-nodding beats, jazz-tinged electric pianos, and New Order bass licks. By contrast, “Party People” weaves a panoply of voices over double bass-driven dub-funk sweetened by flamenco guitar riffs and manic scratching. The four-tracker provides a promising foretaste of McEnroe’s upcoming Five Years In The Factory album.
[Ron Schepper]