“I think anger is an important emotion because it’s activating”, says Emma Ruth Rundle. Fueled by disillusionment and female rage, her powerful new album These Killing Times is an invitation to dare to dream of a better world.
Being an artist in the 21st century is tough. For the great many, it means being at odds with the world around you; constantly being transformed by a hostile environment but also trying to transform it in return. At least, that is how the last couple of years seem to have played out for Emma Ruth Rundle. As the Trump administration, the Epstein files and progressively extreme climate catastrophes further underscore the destructive nature of capitalism, white supremacy and the patriarchy, the singer/songwriter has become increasingly political – moving her gaze from her internal life to the dystopian reality humanity faces, and choosing activation instead of resignation in response.
“Part of the idea of the record was that I wanted to play with a band again”, Emma elaborates on her new release, These Killing Times. It’s been six years since her last regular studio album, Engine Of Hell, came out – a reduced, tender solo record that was stripped of all excess. Since then, she has released an EP, a live album, her second guitar album EG2: Dowsing Voice and the poetry book The Bella Vista. Moving back to a full-band format not only allowed her more musical adventurousness but also, maybe most importantly, the chance to create a community; to drag herself out of the apathy, isolation and demoralization of the 2020s that so many of us feel. So, she invited an array of guest musicians to play on her album – saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, guitarists Nick Reinhart (Tera Melos) and Gina Gleason (Baroness), Marissa Nadler, Lukas Frank (Storefront Church) and Amelia Baker (Cinder Well). She also assembled an all-female band (including Gleason and Baker) that will bring these songs to life on tour. Together with them, Emma aims to voice and share her anger but also a sense of hope, encouragement and belonging in the age of social media, when most people interact more with screens than actual human beings. “I think anger is an important emotion because it’s activating”, she says. “The whole record is dealing with disillusionment and anger, with female rage and climate change. It asks the question: What are we going to do? What kind of world do we want to live in? And what are the tools we need to find to do something about it?”
The inside and the outside world
It’s a lyrical shift for the musician who’s known for writing introspective songs about her personal life and her past – something she says would now feel “self-indulgent and inappropriate”, given the current state of the world. And she wastes no time establishing what and who she’s taking aim at: Album opener Powerless is a statement of intent for These Killing Times on every level: Both tender and vigorous, gloomy and resilient, it encapsulates the core values of the record. The working title for the song was “Noam Chomsky is fucking dead to me”, and the revelation of Chomsky’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein seems to be emblematic of the main themes that run through this album: abuse of power, moral corruption and the hubris of men. “Power corrupting, you had my trust. Empire collapsing, everything dust” are the first words we hear. “Maybe the trust was misplaced, but I grew up looking up to Noam Chomsky as being this anti-capitalist intellectual who had a great way of tracking, communicating, and describing the failings of the Western world. I can’t understand how that person was so aligned with the darkest aspects of that world”, Emma laments. “The bridge of that song is supposed to be uplifting and have this almost communist image. It’s based on the folklore of John Henry, who worked on the railroad and fought machines. There’s this lyric that gets echoed through folk music, saying ‘Lord, let me die with a hammer in my hand.’”
For Emma Ruth Rundle, dealing with these issues is not only a matter of artistic responsibility but of authenticity: If you can’t go outside because the weather is too extreme, if your community lives in fear of ICE and police brutality, if evil men remain in power despite their crimes, how can you not constantly think and therefore write about that? “This is what I’m feeling, and this record is for other people that feel that way, too”, she elaborates. “I think sometimes just having someone else confirm your feelings and your reality keeps you from going insane.” In Catherine Wheel, she repeatedly asks herself, “How can this be (real)?”. It’s a hint at a sense of disbelief regarding a reality that has not only become dystopian but outright absurd. And it’s just one of the many open questions asked on These Killing Times. Emma doesn’t have the answers, and even if she did, she would want us to find our own. Functioning as invitations to the listeners to become active participants in the musings of this album, questions like “Hey man, what will you do?” and “Do not you have the whole world? Is not the whole world enough?” open an ideational playground for us to dare and dream of the world we want to live in.
The dark and the playful
Always more drawn to the poetic instead of the all too literal, Emma taps into the rich history of Christian mythology and imagery to illustrate her thoughts and feelings: She talks about heaven and Babylon, addresses God (“Lord, give us more! Not hegemony, not disorder”), reinterprets the story of the prophet Elijah, and juxtaposes these grand narratives with quotes from Shakespeare and Coppola’s Dracula, references to Helter Skelter and Gone Girl. Putting up the divine and grandiose against pop culture proves one thing: Emma Ruth Rundle’s universe is never one-dimensional. It’s filled with apparent contradictions that make room for the entire spectrum of the human experience. Just look at her music videos for These Killing Times: playful, joyful and magical bits of visual poetry that contrast the often-dire nature of her lyrical content. Created with her friends Mason Rose and Blake Armstrong, these videos are not just an opportunity to escape into fantasy; they’re odes to building something with the people you love. “We’re referencing some of our favorite things that made us want to make art, for example, 80s and 90s practical effects fantasy movies, like Jim Henson stuff”, she says, adding about the iconic puppeteer and filmmaker behind The Muppets, Sesame Street, The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth: “He explored some darker themes and philosophically deep but also silly stuff. I like it when something can hold multitudes, and I also think it's important to not take myself too seriously all the time.”
These Killing Times contains multitudes on a musical level as well: Whereas Emma Ruth Rundle’s previous albums each had a distinct sound and style, her latest release is an amalgamation of all the realms she’s explored before: the intimate and stripped-down, the metallic and heavy, the escalating and unleashed. Together with longtime collaborator and co-producer Sonny Diperri (My Bloody Valentine, Trent Reznor, These New Puritans), the singer/songwriter wanted to erase all limitations and constraints and make room for spontaneity. “We wanted to do a full tour of everything that I’ve ever done, in a way that’s not forced, and just let things be what they are”, she explains. “We left a lot of room for stuff to develop in the studio – not writing every single melody or guitar part. We just wanted to see what happens.” The result is her most multi-faceted, comprehensive album – one that hides secrets and surprises in its depths. For example, the unique sounds of the Swarmatron (Enough), a rare analogue synth used by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their Oscar-winning score for The Social Network. “We’ve tried to fit it onto two other records in the past, and it just never worked”, Emma reveals with a chuckle.
As These Killing Times comes to a close, we’re left with one last query: “What will we live for beyond the valley of the shadow of the fear of all men?” It’s a big question, and one that Emma Ruth Rundle wants us all to find our own answers to. “I think that any kind of seedling of an idea is worth having. That gate that comes down to shut you down and make you think, ‘No, no, no, I’m not gonna dream, I’m not gonna even have hope’ – somebody put that idea there that it's stupid or not worthwhile. Fuck that”, she says. “We have to think about it. I want to live for birdsong. It can be that simple, and then we'll work out the rest.”
