Three years before the release of her acclaimed debut album
Some Heavy Ocean
,
Emma Ruth Rundle
issued an evocative set of ambient, experimental guitar compositions called
Electric Guitar: One
.
EG2: Dowsing Voice
sees the post-folk/metal songstress deliver an equally haunting sequel that's braver and bolder than its predecessor. Completed before the release of 2021's spare and inward-looking
Engine of Hell
, the ten-track set focuses as much on
Rundle
's voice as her guitar skills. Throughout it all, the artist serves as both herald and seer, utilizing a language of her own making, which she peppers with improvised acoustic and electric guitar, moonlit crooning, and feral woodland howls. Bereft of traditional song structure, each piece allows
to unearth deeply emotional beats that feel caught somewhere between celebration and exorcism. Both stirring and discomforting, it's not an easy listen, but it shares enough DNA with her big studio releases to feel canonical. Primal, potent, and plump with heathen energy,
Dowsing Voice
intrepidly stalks the netherworld, searching for ancient truths and ancestral purpose. ~ James Christopher Monger