Emma Ruth Rundle announces new album 'Engine of Hell,' shares "Return"

September 9, 2021

Emma Ruth Rundle has announced a new album, Engine of Hell, due November 5 via Sargent House (pre-order the vinyl). Emma, whose album are usually guitar-based, primarily used piano for this album, and she says, “Here are some very personal songs; here are my memories; here is me teetering on the very edge of sanity dipping my toe into the outer reaches of space and I’m taking you with me and it’s very fucked up and imperfect.”

“For me this album is the end of an era to the end of a decade of making records,” she continues. “Things DO have to change and have changed for me since I finished recording it.”

The first single is “Return,” which comes with a video self-directed by Emma, who says:

An examination of the existential. A fractured poem. Trying to quantify what something is definitely about or pontificating on it’s concrete meaning defeats the purpose of art making. I’m not a writer. I make music and images to express things that my words cannot convey or emote. I’ve been studying ballet and the practice of expression through movement, which I incorporated into the video. I choreographed a dance to the song – some of which you see. Pieces show through. Since completing ‘Engine of Hell’, I’ve stepped away from music more and more and into things like dance, painting and working on ideas for videos or little films. ‘Return’ is the result of the efforts.

The bare-bones song features just Emma’s soaring voice over minimal, melancholic piano, and it’s as hauntingly gorgeous as you’d expect from her. Check out the song and video below, alongside the tracklist. That’s the album artwork (photographed by Deafheaven’s George Clarke) above.

In the past year, Emma released a collaborative album and EP with Thou, as well as a collaborative single with Chelsea Wolfe. She’s also set to appear on the upcoming Marissa Nadler album.