The talented American singer and songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle, just released her new episode of Orpheus Looking Back, which consist of a small collection of unreleased songs from her hit 2021 album, Engine of Hell. The three songs keep up with the rest of the album’s theme of raw emotion.

One of the tracks in the episode and the most popular, “Pump Organ Song” was stated to talk about Rundle’s failing marriage with Jaye Jayle’s co-founder Evan Patterson. The song’s eerie instrumentals contrast nicely along the mental complexities and struggles Rundle has dealt with in the song. She uses war as a beautiful and cleverly used metaphor to illustrate how each partner did not truly comprehend one another, “But I spoke a language he could not understand”.

“St. Non”, as Rundle has revealed, was scrapped out of the album last minute. The song was inspired by her trip visiting the well, chapel and spring at Saint David in Pembrokeshire. Rundle talks about the weight that St. Non has carried, while at the same time holding in her worst fears, “here is my pride, here is my grieving, here is this hell I’ve been recieving”.

And finally is the last track of the episode, “Gilded Cage”. Rundle recognizes the song for it’s energy, but because of this, was an outlier, and was cut. However, the spark in the song is clear, with Rundle giving all her might to deliver perfect high notes, while the lyrics compliment it, “With your knife and cowl hang in dangerous hours, What will you do with the strangest of powers?”

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat