I’d meant to post this after the Monade track, but, erm, oops. So here it is now.

Back in the days when Kill Rock Stars had Sleater-Kinney and Elliott Smith, and the Decemberists were just a figment of Colin Meloy’s imagination, label founder Slim Moon spun off a boutique label from KRS called 5 Rue Christine. The idea was Kill Rock Stars would be where all the normal indie rock stuff would live, while 5RC would be the label for the more “out there” stuff. For the most part, “out there” ended up meaning noisy, experimental rock and pop. XBXRX, Deerhoof, Hella and Need New Body have all put out albums on 5RC; Marnie Stern’s first album was supposed to be a 5RC release as well (and maybe still technically is—a lot of 5RC releases ended up being joint ones with Kill Rock Stars). When Moon left Kill Rock Stars a year and a half ago, 5 Rue Christine didn’t stick around much longer; it’s now in semi-retirement, much like Seattle label Up Records back in 2000 when co-founder Chris Takino died from leukaemia.

One of the label’s first releases was this one-off project from the late Mary Hansen of Stereolab, who’d gotten together with the Seattle band Hovercraft to form Schema. As an early indicator of 5RC’s mission, the band’s self-titled album was one of the quieter statements despite Hovercraft’s spacey noise-rock pedigree, but the album was unconventional and probably difficult to sell to the usual indie rock crowd—in other words, a direct hit. Some of Stereolab’s noodly synthesizer tendencies creep into the mix, and Hansen’s voice is quite recognizable (something few second vocalists can boast about). Anyone expecting another Stereolab, however, will be sorely disappointed: what we have here is waves of muted guitar feedback, relentless rhythmic loops, and songs that don’t really progress so much as fill the room for ten minutes like a fog before slowly dissipating.

Apparently, Hovercraft and Hansen were pleased enough with the collaboration that they had planned a second album and a tour. All that was cut short in late 2002 when Hansen was hit and killed while riding her bicycle. Hovercraft, for its part, may have seen Schema not as a side project but as an evolution; with Schema gone, Hovercraft seemed to disappear into the ether.