The Portland-based musician Emma Ruth Rundle specializes in bleak, overwhelming music about how we're all completely fucked as a species (or maybe that's just my takeaway.) But there's something utopian about the way that Rundle makes music, collaborating freely across genre lines and finding community in unlikely spaces. It doesn't negate the message or the feeling of her music, but I like the contrast — singing about hopelessness while operating in a way that inspires hope.
Rundle is a real-deal collaborator; May Our Chambers Be Full, the fucking awesome 2020 album that she made with Thou, is easily my favorite thing that Rundle or Thou have ever done. Maybe because she does so much work with other people, Rundle hasn't released a full solo LP since 2021's Engine Of Hell. Today, she announces her upcoming album These Killing Times, and lead single "Powerless" suggests great things are on the way.
Rundle recorded These Killing Times with past collaborator Sonny Diperri, and a slew of interesting musicians made contributions, including Patrick Shiroishi, Marissa Nadler, Storefront Church, and Baroness' Gina Gleason. Nadler's new song "Powerless" is a heavy, emotional lament about being constantly reminded that you can never trust a motherfucker in a place of prominence — spurred, in this case, by the connections between Noam Chomsky and Jeffrey Epstein.
The music on "Powerless" starts out quiet and thoughtful before strings and guitars swell upward into something crushing. It's got Troy Zeigler on bass, Chelsea Wolfe collaborator Jess Gowrie on drums, Tera Melos' Nick Reinhart on electric guitar leads, and harmony vocals from Amelia Baker, aka Cinder Well. Here's what Rundle says about it:
This song was initially titled "Noam Chomsky Is Dead To Me," as his relationship to Epstein and the billionaire class was being exposed — just another massively disappointing headline in a time where we are incessantly confronted with an onslaught of news and headlines which are endlessly demoralizing and dehumanizing.
This song, like most of the songs on These Killing Times, is a reaction to the horrors we are seeing laid bare on a daily basis — the clear and painful reality of the myriad injustices levied upon the working class people of earth, from climate collapse to genocide to the miscarriage of justice on a scale the likes of which we have not seen in our lifetimes, the collapse of empire, the demise of democracy, the erosion of women’s rights and LGBTQIA+ rights and black rights, the attempt to dehumanize immigrants and people of color, the concentration camps in the USA — the list is so long I don't think I can accurately cover it all here. With "Powerless," I invoke the hammer, both to destroy and to build something better. I want people to know they are not alone, they are not insane. I wanted to name the thing that has been causing me so much mental, emotional and spiritual anguish. Sometimes singing, especially repeating phases, can work to fortify one’s self, and I think that’s where the bridge of "Powerless" comes in — I refuse to let my agency and resolve become corrupted or diluted by the powers that be, and I want others to feel empowered, too.
Below, check out the "Powerless" video, the tracklist for These Killing Times, and Rundle's upcoming tour dates.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Powerless"
02 "God’s Picture"
03 "Anvil"
04 "Catherine Wheel"
05 "Don’t Delay Heaven"
06 "Enough"
07 "Human Kindness"
08 "Oceans Of Time"
TOUR DATES:
6/19-21 - Pe Ell, WA @ Cascadian Midsummer
10/10 - Chattanooga, TN @ The Signal ~
10/11 - Ponte Vedra Beach, FL @ Ponte Vedra Concert Hall ~
10/12 - Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club ~
10/13 - Charleston, SC @ Charleston Music Hall ~
10/14 - Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre ~
10/15 - Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa ~
10/16 - Harrisburg, PA @ XL Live ~
10/17 - Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony ~
10/18 - Norwalk, CT @ District Music Hall ~
10/19 - Portsmouth, NH @ 3S Artspace ~
10/20 - South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground ~
10/21 - Albany, NY @ Empire Live ~
10/22 - Buffalo, NY @ Electric City ~
10/23 - McKees Rocks, PA @ Roxian Theatre ~
10/24 - Indianapolis, IN @ HI-FI Annex ~
10/25 - Grand Rapids, MI @ The Intersection ~
10/26 - Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom ~
10/27 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue ~
10/28 - Des Moines, IA @ Wooly's ~
10/29 - Bloomington, IL @ The Castle Theatre ~
10/30 - Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart's ~
~ with All Them Witches
These Killing Times is out 9/18 on Errant Child. Pre-order it here.
