By Jase Walker
What better way to help keep the post-festival blues of ArcTanGent away than to go see an ATG-adjacent artist the day after you get back and have only just had the first proper night’s sleep in a week? Thus I’m back at Utrecht’s lovely De Helling venue for Emma Ruth Rundle, no stranger to the peculiarities of ATG and the absolute perfect hangover cure to the festivities. Joining Emma tonight is another solo artist, Berlin pianist Jon Samuel Ardron.
The room darkens and a silhouette of Jon Samuel appears, sits in front of a piano and begins delicately tapping the keys out and the room falls into almost complete silence. A large orb of dim light is nearly the only illumination in the room barring the sound desk and two weak flood lights focused directly on him. Anyone entering from the rear doors mid conversation quickly realized it’s time to shut up which is a lovely sign of respect to this sort of show. Jon’s beautiful melancholia has the audience completely zoned in and focused on the tender melodies he’s creating. I find myself absolutely enraptured by this performance, absolutely transfixed on Jon’s lonely yet brilliantly moving set. The large orb on the screen behind subtlety twists and distorts, steadily changing hues as the set moves along.
There are no weird gimmicks here or overwhelming force of performance, just a hauntingly gorgeous wistful set of piano melodies to witness. Given my often erratic nature and living in a state of mild chaos, this brings some real calm and serenity to me. I’m genuinely very surprised at how the crowd has stayed pretty silent throughout the entire set and not just that, the venue is
pretty full as well. This sort of respectful silence has let Jon Sam’s music truly sing and not be overshadowed by a bunch of rude tossers loudly talking over the top of it. A real enthralling start to the show tonight and genuinely made better by a properly respectful crowd.
The stage is covered in a drawn curtain, which slowly parts, displaying a shot of what appears to be a moving sea while Emma Ruth Rundle silently walks up to the mic bearing a nylon stringed guitar. I have no idea how low it’s tuned but those initial heavy strums boomed enough to shake my jeans. Emma’s soft and subtle vocals begin alongside the heavily reverb soaked acoustic and the audience is so quiet you could hear a pin drop during the quieter moments in her songs.
Emma frequently uses voice breaks in her vocal melodies reminiscent of Dolores of The Cranberries, although definitely much softer given the style of music. I can’t really put my finger on Emma’s style to relate it to something else I know well, it’s just her tender voice and fairly minimalist acoustic playing, just enough to give a sense of rhythm and melody.
It must be nerve wracking to get on stage on your own with this somewhat barebones style of music, relying heavily on an audience to self-police the experience. The fact that the crowd here is so silent during the set is making this a real intimate and beautiful experience however. It’s apparent how the emotion for each of these songs crosses Emma’s face as she plays them. Some particular verses seemingly carry more emotional weight than others as she briefly grimaces while singing them with others almost as if she’s biting back tears. It’s also quite endearing to see her explain that she’s been relearning some old songs and then fumbling her words before making a quick apology for not being a public speaker.
Emma’s ethereal and sometimes folky songs have truly captured my heart tonight. After so many loud shows over the
past few months I think I really needed a show like this to properly mash the reset button. An intimate and beautiful show this evening, Emma Ruth Rundle is a spectacular artist to behold at a live show and little wonder she’s revered in circles that like their music “just that little bit odd”.
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