Emma Ruth Rundle (born October 10, 1983) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, visual artist and poet based in Portland, Oregon. Formerly of the Nocturnes and Marriages, she has released five solo albums and is a member of Red Sparowes.[1]
Early life
Rundle was born on October 10, 1983, in Santa Monica, California.[2][3] Her father is a pianist.[4] She moved “back and forth between the Westside and Eastside” when she was growing up before attending Eagle Rock High School.[3]
At age eight,[3][5] and after a massive earthquake in her hometown, her mother took her into the legendary folk music store McCabe's and told her she could pick one instrument to rent for lessons. She initially chose the Celtic harp, and later went on to work at McCabe's for 13 years.[6] She moved on to guitar when she was twelve years old and begin to write her own songs when she was thirteen years old.[3] She was raised in Los Angeles with her younger sister Sarah in a household where a lot of folk music was played.[7][5] As a teenager, Rundle lived with her grandmother until the end of her life.[8]
She also started playing the piano under guidance of her father after abandoning the Celtic harp which was her primary instrument up to her teenage years. But when she begun playing in bands she realized that a keyboard sounded unacceptable on stage and couldn't replicate the sound of a real piano, and moving a keyboard proved too physically taxing for her, making it too cumbersome for her to use. So she decided to stick with a guitar from then on, and wouldn't reprioritize a piano until 2021's Engine of Hell.[4] She spent a year at CalArts where she studied music technology,[9] which included individual classes under the tutelage of Miroslav Tadić, before dropping out.[10]
Career
After staying a year in New Zealand, she returned to the United States and got back involved in the Los Angeles music scene.[9] During that period she started her own band in 2007,[11] the Nocturnes, and released the Wellington EP (2008) and two albums, A Year of Spring (2009) and Aokigahara (2011) with the latter released via Errant Child Records. The sound of the band was described as folkgaze with elements of chamber-pop, goth, and post-rock.[12][13] Around this time, the post-rock band, Red Sparowes, announced in June, 2009 that Rundle had joined the band as a guitarist,[14] where she replaced Josh Graham who had departed the band the previous year.[15] She played on their third and final album, The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer, released by Sargent House on April 6, 2010.[16]Tool and Melvins producer Toshi Kasai was credited with the production on the album.[17]
She self-released an ambient guitar album, Electric Guitar: One, in 2011.[5] It was later reissued in 2014 by Errant Child Recordings. That same year, she formed the trio Marriages with her fellow Red Sparowes bandmates Greg Burns and Dave Clifford,[18] for the release of their first EP, 2012's Kitsune.[19]Kitsune was created in a short timeframe during a brief offtime from Red Sparowes at the end of 2011, Kasai was the producer on the EP.[11] It received generally favorable reviews.[20] Between releases Dave Clifford left the band and would be replaced by Andrew Clinco.[19] This new formation released Marriages' first and only full-length album, Salome, in 2015.[19]
On January 7, 2013, she independently released the album Somnambulant, attributed to The Headless Prince of Zolpidem,[21] which she described as "my somewhat anonymous downtempo, somewhat creepy electronic dark wave project". In an interview with Ghettoblaster Magazine she confirmed she was behind the semi-secret side project.[22] She originally wanted to explore this project more and it existed before Marriages was formed, but it failed to find a sufficient audience and her very expensive synthesizer was stolen, which she was unable to replace it at the time. In a later interview she has shown a desire to revisit the sound.[23]
Rundle's second solo work, Some Heavy Ocean, was released on May 20, 2014, by Sargent House.[24] Prior to release the album was available on Pitchfork Advance.[25] It was co-produced by Chris Common and recorded at the Sargent House studio. Rundle lived at the studio complex as an artist-in-residence for the period.[7] All of the material on the album was written between the summer of 2012 and 2013, but a significant amount of the arrangements and lyrics were only completed during the lengthy recording process. The title song for the album was previously a dark wave song called The Riches of Summer’s Death, meant for The Headless Prince Of Zolpidem.[22] The release was accompanied by a US tour with King Buzzo.[26]
Rundle suffers from adenomyosis, which in part inspired the material on her third album, Marked for Death, produced by Sonny DiPerri.[27] It was released in October 2016 on Sargent House.[28]
In January 2017, a split EP with Jaye Jayle, titled The Time Between Us, was announced, and the song "The Distance" was made available on streaming platforms.[29][30] The EP was released by Sargent House on February 24. Rundle also released the song "Forever, As the Setting Son" on January 20, 2017, the date of Donald Trump's inauguration as United States president, with all proceeds donated to Planned Parenthood.[31]
Rundle's fourth studio album, On Dark Horses, was released on September 14, 2018.[32] It featured contributions by Jaye Jayle members Evan Patterson and Todd Cook as well as Dylan Nadon.[33] Also in 2018, Rundle provided backing vocals for "Just Breathe", a song on American rock band Thrice's 2018 album Palms.[34]
Rundle attended the 2019's Roadburn Festival, where she and the artist in residence at time, the sludge metal band Thou, would team-up and perform a couple of brand-new songs they had written for a special setlist, with the intention of releasing a collaboration album at a future date. This album was first set in motion when they shared a dressing room at Seattle’s Northwest Terror Fest in 2018, realizing the potential cooperation. Both artists would find value in their partnership having been long-time admirers of each others previous work, Rundle admitted in an interview with Guitar World that she in 2015 became obsessed with the band and felt that they had "mutual awareness". Rundle found the partnership fruitful allowing it her to add more heft and broaden the use of the instrumentals compared to her own solo releases. All the songs on the whole project took over a painstakingly year to come to together, while the recording itself only took three days.[35][36] In October 2020, their collaboration album, May Our Chambers Be Full, was released.[37] With a surprise follow-up EP called, The Helm of Sorrow, which included a cover of the Cranberries song, Hollywood. It consisted of four b-sides that were from May Our Chambers Be Full that were originally included in “diehard” edition of the original release.[38][39]
In August 2019, Roadburn Festival announced that Rundle was one of two curators for the 2020 edition,[40] alongside a scheduled reunion concert for the Red Sparowes following a ten-year long hiatus,[41] but the whole planned event was later cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[42] On July 3 2020, she released a standalone single named, Staying Power, which she originally recorded during the On Dark Horses studio sessions. The song details the experiences from a touring musician trying to survive and keeping in touch with her own feelings.[43] She made her debut as a feature film composer with the Riley Stearns film Dual. She was first approached by Stearns around the time of On Dark Horses and would score his short 2020's The Blanket as precursor while spending her time that year mostly at home.[44]
After a week-long stay in a mental health hospital helped her get sober from drugs and alcohol,[45] she released her fifth studio solo album, Engine of Hell, in November 2021,[46] to positive critical reception.[47] She would later release a new EP called Orpheus Looking Back, consisting of three songs that she made during Engine of Hell recording sessions but didn't make the cut. The first song named Pump Organ Song., which she created in response to the dissolution of her marriage, was published as a single ahead of its March 25, 2022 release date.[48][49] In support of Engine of Hell and Orpheus Looking Back, she embarked on a short 2023 Spring North American tour which took place from March 24th and ended at the Le Poisson Rouge on April 9th.[50][51] A live recording of Engine of Hell, titled Live At Roadburn, which she performed at the 2022's Roadburn Festival was released separately on July 7, 2023. It was her first independently released album in thirteen years.[52]
On April 8, 2022, she announced a follow-up album to her first album, Electric Guitar: One, titled EG2: Dowsing Voice. Despite the name, the album is a departure from her first album and the rest of her discography, Rundle described it as a "weird art project". Inspired by her stay in coastal Wales in the winter of 2020; where she also recorded the album. it features fully improvised music with special attention towards experimental vocals that are devoid of conventional lyrics. It was released on May 13, 2022.[53][54]
In March 2024, Rundle collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Patrick Shiroishi on a track called A Sparrow In A Swallow’s Nest, in the song Rundle recites her poem “Paloma.” while Shiroishi provides the instrumentals. It was released as the A-side on a new 7" single by Shiroishi via Sub Pop on April 12.[55][56] On the 10th anniversary of her second album, Some Heavy Ocean, she would return to Europe on a tour in August to celebrate the record including a concert at the Supersonic Festival.[57][58] In August, she announced a new fall US tour with Ora Cogan and Storefront Church as the openers. The tour is set to start in late October and runs through December.[59][60]
Rundle is set to make her literary debut with a collection of poems that will be release by Unnamed Press in 2025. The poems were written during her travels over the course of a year, accompanying the book she will release a limited edition album that includes piano sketches, which were inspired by Harold Budd who was major influence on the project.[60][61]
Personal life
Rundle struggled with drug addiction from the age of 12.[62]
She was married to Jaye Jayle co-founder Evan Patterson. They lived in Louisville, Kentucky. Their divorce was finalized in August 2021.[63][64]
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