Rudolf Eb.er — Om Kult: Ritual Practice of Conscious Dying Vol II
The CD appears in a simple-yet-effective four-panel digipak, which takes in a selection of pictures of liver like structures- there no indication if these are human or animal, but whichever they are they are bluntly unsettling. With the whole thing finished-off by white textures, and liver coloured blocks of colour.
When I first slipped this album into play- I’ll have to admit I wasn’t in the best of moods & more than a little tired, so initially I put down my feelings of sour uneasy & queasy displeasure down to this- but since this first playing I’ve returned to release again, and again. And each time, to varying levels, I’ve once again got that distinctive blend of uneasy & displeasure.
I think what makes the whole release so unbalancing is the way the way that Rudolf Eb.er. has seemingly heightened all elements from the first vol to dizzy & often nausea-inducing levels. Over it’s 70 plus minute runtime, the feeling of unbalance-ment, unpleasantness, and real tangible feeling of uneasy is kept focused & firm through-out, unlike the first vol- there is no relive or ease back- from the albums first moments, till it ends, the release seems to sonically trap you like a still moving butterfly, pinning you onto it’s unforgiving unfold.
As this really works best as one long journey into sonic unwell-ness it’s difficult to choose highlights- but I’ll try, so as to give you a better idea of what we have here. "Mein Leib (My Cadaver)" is nearing two & a half minutes of coldly caught & constantly hit percussive tones, which are surrounded by queasy reversed layers of jabbing vocals, uneasy pop & scraping textures, and unwell air- all sounding like a more lo-fi, and deeply unwell take on the kinda of thing The Residents did on tracks like "Bach Is Dead" Or "Birthday Boy". "Aas Auf Brett (Swollen Corpse)" finds a blend of constantly wavering & sour pitches mixed with slurred & churning pig sounds, fidgeting elector textures, and later muffled tape recording air hover. "Torso Auf Haselnussruten" brings together spaced-out compressed & blunt knocking tones, with constantly rushing water trickle, buried alien chatter, and tone shifting organ hover. And the longest track here "Warmer Kopfbrei" finds just shy of four & a half minute of trapped fly buzz & feast, wavering & slowly pitch shifting organ, and weird croaking & near vomiting mouth sounds, with later a layer of hissing noise & jittering electro rhythmic simmer.
Om Kult: Ritual Practice Of Conscious Dying - Vol. II most definitely stands as one of the most twisted brain-fucks of 2018- with Rudolf Eb.er really pushing his distinctively disturbing sound worlds to new heights. I'm guessing there must be another Vol in series along at some point, and I look forward to hearing that, though I don’t really see how he can top this release in it’s generally continually & focused feeling of sonic unwell-ness