Leiche Rustikal

condition (record/cover): NM / EX- (minimal ring wear)

Leiche Rustikal is the project of Artur Zab, born in Wrocław, Poland in 1967 and subsequently based in Munich. Epitaph, originally released on cassette by Ant-Zen in 1995, is one of the foundational documents of Zab's practice and remains his most pursued early title. The LP reissue version is the form most collectors encounter today.

The record belongs to the power-electronics-adjacent ritual-industrial corner of the Nineties scene: Zab works with pulsed percussion, treated voice, ceremonial pacing, and a thick rhythmic core that places him adjacent to the Laibach / Rasthof Dachau / Sektion B axis and in dialogue with The Grey Wolves on the British side. The earliest version of "Ave Verum Corpus," the piece Zab would later remix as the closing track of the 2002 LP Rudra, appears on this cassette.

Ant-Zen (based in Donaustauf, Germany) was at the time building its catalogue of rhythmic-industrial and post-industrial releases, and Epitaph sits neatly among the label's mid-Nineties curatorial priorities. Some of Zab's later releases have been reissued and compiled, but the 1995 Epitaph cassette remains essentially irreplaceable as the project's ground zero, with the LP reissue preserving that material for a wider audience.