The gothic folk artist’s addiction issues began at 12 and lasted for more than 20 years, exacerbated by a rock’n’roll marriage. Now single and sober, clarity fills her starkly beautiful new album
In both life and art, Emma Ruth Rundle has been running. For the past 15 years, the Los Angeles-born musician has gone from project to project, living nomadically while she played guitar in post-rock bands before branching out into a gothic folk solo career. Now, though, with her fourth solo album Engine of Hell, she seems to have come to a stop.
Rundle sings and plays piano on eight devastatingly intimate songs that confront her drug and alcohol addiction – everything is exposed. “As I age, I’m realising the true value of what I have to offer as an artist is the ugliness of things,” she says.
