Dallas-born, Chicago-based Marian Runk is a dancer, birdwatcher, visual artist, political activist, writer, and musician. Often compared to Karen Dalton and Gillian Welch, the breadth of this creativity is felt in every aspect of her music.
NEW ALBUM Two Wires and a Spark
Out on September 13
Press for Marian’s debut album, A Few Feet From the Ground
“[A Few Feet from the Ground] sounds like poetry set to classic country music. Runk’s soprano voice is like honey and her tunes are full of hooks.”
- Tony Breed,CHIRP Radio
“Marian Runk writes uncannily vivid lyrics. The lovely country- and folk-inflected songs on her debut album, A Few Feet From the Ground, make it easy to picture her characters: the undertaker with a bad toupee in the sparse, dusty "Crowell," for instance, and the lovelorn snow goose pining for a missing companion in the moving ballad "The Loneliest Birds."
-J.R. Nelson (Gossip Wolf), Chicago Reader
Photo by Gillian Fry
Photo by Latham Zearfoss
Photo by Ryan Williams
Photo by Latham Zearfoss
Dallas-born, Chicago-based Runk’s youth was filled with dance, poetry and singing along with the eighties ladies in the car with her mom. In her thirties, those passions converged when she fell in love with songwriting.
Two Wires and a Spark - out on September 13 - is filled with the powerful imagery you expect from someone with such a diverse artistic background. Often compared to Karen Dalton and Gillian Welch, Runk writes lyrics that cover an expanse of themes, including loneliness, (mis)communication, living alongside addiction, dealing with grief, and road trips through the Rust Belt.
