Rudolf Eb.er — Om Kult:Ritual Practice of Conscious Dying Vol III

Here we have the third, and seemingly final release in Rudolf Eb.er’s Om Kult … series it finds the Austrian sound artist severing up other thirty-one slices of sonic unsettlement- that bring together sickly psycho ambience, dizziness inducing siren waves, buzzing tape hiss, weird body sounds, unsettling animal field recordings,and generally unbalancing sonic flotsam and jetsam.

As with the other parts in the Om Kult: Ritual Practice of Conscious Dying series, the release is presented in the form a cd. This comes in a digipak sleeve, which takes in simple yet unsettling artwork- with time around the front cover featuring a fly buzzing mound of foul mud or faeces.

The CD offers up thirty-two tracks in all- and these run between a few seconds, and three or so minutes. Compared with the first two volumes this opens with slightly longer tracks at the front end, and these felt like they had more weird animal or human trying to be animal sounds present- taking in a selection of grunts, snorts, and croaks- as well as feasting fly buzzes. It feels, certainly at the beginning of the album, that we’ve now reached & touched down on the sickly & decaying planet we’ve had sonic glances of on the first two vols- with us moving from relatively long dwells in certain locations. So, as a result, it doesn’t feel as jarring, and unhinged as the first two vols- but I guess it’s interesting to see Rudolf presenting his sickly craft differently. Later on, we do get the shorter slices of sonic unbalance-ment- but to me the longer dwells here where more impactful.

When playing through Om Kult: Ritual Practice Of Conscious Dying - Vol. III I felt less on edge, and I guess more curiously unsettled- maybe it because I’ve now heard the three Vols- and this now has less of a punch. Or it’s down to the longer track lengths- but whichever it is I’m afraid that this Vol did slightly underwhelming- but I guess he really couldn’t top the  jarring derangement of Vol II.

So, in conclusion, this certainly another worthy sonic venture into Rudolf Eb.er rather sickly unique sound worlds- and if you enjoyed the more sustained dwells of the first two Vols- I think you’ll really click with this…but to me it felt  the lesser of the three Vols.