Alt-rock solo artist Emma Ruth Rundle and doom-punk experimentalists Thou have toured together before and played collaborative live sets, including a standout Misfits cover set at Roadburn festival last year, and now they've announced a full-fledged collaborative full-length, May Our Chambers Be Full. The album is due out October 30th via Sacred Bones — as the latest in the record label's Alliance Series of collaborative releases, which includes recent works from Uniform and The Body, and Marissa Nadler and Stephen Brodsky — and it's available for pre-order now. Today (August 19th), Rundle and Thou have unleashed the LP's lead single, the haunting, monolithic "Ancestral Recall."
"It's an easy marriage of our styles that was truly enhanced by everyone's input during the arrangement process." Thou guitarist Andy Gibbs commented. "When I first wrote the main two riffs (the first one being an homage to A Perfect Circle's 'Sleeping Beauty'), I didn't know if it would fit with the vibe we were pursuing because it didn't sound "Thou-y" enough nor did it sound like something Emma would normally put on a record. Ultimately, I realized how important that trait is; this record is all about exploring territory we wouldn't usually explore with our own records."
Emma added, "Andy originally wrote the riffs and I believe I referred to it as the Guitar Hero jam — it was hard for me to keep up and I felt like I was doing an obstacle course (in the best way). Because of the differences in our guitar tunings, it was difficult for me to match the rest exactly and I ended up coming with a single note passage to play over the most difficult section. For me, this was a good example of the collaboration and that I was able to express my style despite my limitations in a way that added to Andy's riff. Working with him on guitars was a challenge, but most rewarding, and I feel proud of our child."
For more from Rundle, watch her recent appearance on Saint Vitus Bar's interview series "The Age of Quarantine":
