Emma Ruth Rundle

Few songwriters have travelled as far from a single childhood instrument as Emma Ruth Rundle, who began on the Celtic harp before settling on the guitar that anchors her work. Born in Santa Monica in 1983 and raised in Los Angeles in a home where folk music was constantly played, she now lives in Portland, Oregon, working as a singer-songwriter, guitarist, visual artist and poet. Her work resists easy labels, sitting somewhere between folk, post-rock and darker electronic textures.

Her path ran through several bands before her solo career took shape. She started the Nocturnes in 2007 and joined the post-rock group Red Sparowes as a guitarist in 2009, appearing on their final album. Her solo work includes Some Heavy Ocean in 2014 and Marked for Death in 2016, a record partly inspired by her adenomyosis. On Dark Horses arrived in September 2018, and after performing with the sludge band Thou at Roadburn Festival in 2019, she planned a collaboration album with them.