Emma Ruth Rundle, William Fowler Collins [25.07.2023: Porgy & Bess, Wien]

2023-07-28 18:18:58

by Oliver
on July 28, 2023
in Featured, Reviews

During her last guest performance, Emma pulled Ruth Rundle because of the a few meters further Chromatics unfairly the short end. Her guest performance at the Porgy & Bess now, however, an absolute must.

After all, the 39-year-old is leading on this tour (which recently also appeared as a – physically expensive, limited – Roadburn recording) Engine of Hell one of the best works of the still young decade in chronological order.
Before that, however, William Fowler Collins tries a fairly sparsely filled one Porgy & Bess to put you in the right mood. For that would be the gen Grouper The American’s flowing ambience drone is also really well suited in itself. But while Collins sits in static concentration for 30 minutes, stroking his instrument like a Duracell bunny with a brush for soft, ethereal astral projections (with a consistency that makes arms fall elsewhere), on the one hand, of course, there’s a limited one Worth seeing, on the other hand, the original handwriting is missing: the flat drama does not force the imagination into any depth effect, it hardly grows beyond the solid improvised genre standard.

William Fowler

Punctually at half past eight Rundle is standing there with his make-up on – a necessary form to be able to somehow hide when disclosing such intimate, naked songs? – on the small stage of the Porgy & Bess, examines the circumstances of the location curiously and apologizes for the fact that the show didn’t turn out to be a seated affair as planned. (In reality, however, the volume of the bars, which are not separated from the stage, alone is a nuisance when, in all the silence, glasses are constantly rattling or cash registers beeping.)
At In My Afterlife Rundle closes the circle and later declares again that even with such a “boring depressing show‘ definitely wanted to sit, but with the audience standing there in reverence, of course, would have been more afraid that things would get out of hand, someone would storm the stage, while the intense mosh pit could throw open a gate to hell at any time.

Emma Ruth Rundle 1

The announcements between the individual, so infinitely sad pieces of Engine of Hell are counteracted and balanced by the American in an amazingly humorous way, which gives Rundle’s absolutely charismatic presence even more appeal.
Before The Company she first explains that so far she has only enjoyed the punk setting of the arena in Vienna and to that extent in the Porgy & Bess suffering a sort of culture shock before doing a “striptease” at the end of the number and jerkily peeling off her dualistic colored jacket: “I’m known for my grace‘ she grins, also explaining why she said before the encore Marked for Death doesn’t even leave the stage – so she’d probably fall down a flight of stairs trying to come back.

Emma Ruth Rundle 2

In fact, the sheer beauty of the melancholy on this evening is almost staggering as soon as the opener begins Return it gets under your skin so much slower and more ethereally than the studio version spreads and the evolution of the material is made clear in the interpretation.
Rundle alternates between piano pieces like Body and intoned on a full acoustic guitar showing a deep physique Blooms of Oblivionin which Emma, for once, talks about her mother’s drug addiction Pulp Fiction-Adrenaline vaccination told. Razor‘s Edge is meanwhile about cocaine and Citadel thinks about the soundtrack – yeah, what was it again?! – further to fantasize the naive dreams of childhood.

Dancing Man As a kind of love song, perhaps transfiguring bittersweet, perhaps beguilingly innocent, she also roams through the garden of memories in search of the supposedly perfect moment and Emma also addresses her small, short gestures, which take up scenes from the songs almost like approaches to expressive dance, imaginative Open doors or cross yourself. And really, the much too short evening has something spiritual in its ascetic openness, the catharsis seems even more universal in the distanceless, captivating pull than the studio versions of the songs already were: to Emma Ruth Rundle in the Porgy & Bess (unfortunately without the encores played elsewhere Pump Organ Songor the even more exclusive The Color gets by) there is really no alternative program at all, looking back this tour will probably shine as an essential point in their career.