With over 600 songs to his name and a dozen independently produced tapes and CDs over the past decade, Matt Kjeldsen's a veteran of the music industry. Recording on a simple Roland VS1680 in his home studio, Matt creates sophisticated mixes of introspective pop rock with his band, the Runes, a quintet of seasoned musicians contributing cello, percussion, bass and guitars. Their sound ranges in tone from irreverent to sublime, from angry to resigned. To compare them to someone else making music today would be unproductive. Nonetheless, the musicality is familiar: grown from the roots of John Lennon, Paul Simon, Queen, Pink Floyd ... a rare musical hybrid producing rich yields of social commentary and supple orchestration.

Kjeldsen was born in Oklahoma, 1962, raised in Texas, the second son of an Shell manager, and educated in the suburbs of Houston. By the time he enrolled at the University of Texas in 1980, he'd already written over 50 hard driving rock songs and headed two bands. Upon graduation in 1984, he'd penned a 100 more, produced a few full length cassettes and played in all the marquee clubs of Austin as lead singer/ songwriter for Hudley Stungwell.  After college, with new member, gifted guitarist, Mac McNabb, Kjeldsen's new bands the Name and then Gravity Jacket, became short-lived staples of the Austin live music scene.

'I could have continued playing the club scene and gone on the road', says Matt. ' But when you're on the road, you're not writing, not recording, not doing something new'. Over the next decade he continued to perfect his sound and develop new songs. He raised a son, worked odd jobs and found just enough time to complete one project and to move onto the next.

In 1994 he joined forces with Brian Collins and Jimmy Holloway to form the Runes. They were playing acoustic sets in Austin coffeehouses when they met Carrie Miller, a cellist finishing her Master's degree in Performance. With the addition of the cello, the Runes achieved a unique sound featuring deep rich tones to accompany Matt's savvy lyrics and familiar rock vocals. In 1995, they added Julie Carlton as their permanent bass player and started playing regularly at Steamboat and The Austin Outhouse.

Once again, however, Matt opted to be a recording artist rather than
performer. The band's first CD, Lost Songs, came out in 1998 on Matt¹s own label, Risky Records. Independent reviewers from MuzikMan, Pure and Simple, and Zine of the Times were impressed by the sheer musicality of the works (they all referenced the layers, the number of instruments) and touted the Runes as a band to watch. 'Intelligent, witty, thought provoking', said Gary Vollono of IndepenDisc. 'There's plenty here to justify finding these Lost Songs'.

It took four years of production to complete the band's newest release,
Dancing with Ghosts on the Knotrilly Records label. (Matt simultaneously compiled Infiltrate -- Music for Media. Its dark, loop-driven electronic grooves were featured in the quirky documentary Crime Scene Cleaners.) In Ghosts the band has achieved a new level of sophistication. Drawing again on personal experience and innovative rock orchestration, the Runes prove they're no ordinary band. 'Give me something that I ain't seen before', Matt challenges in the CDs' last track. That's exactly what he's done. The Runes have been featured on Austin's KTBC's The Breakfast Club and KXAN's Out on the Porch with Jim Swift. Their sarcastic ditty, Shitty Little Tune, was also used in the motion picture Equinox Knocks.

When Matt's not recording, he plays water polo and brews his own beer. He recently completed digitally recording 110 CDs worth of his music library and plans to release five new Runes CDs in the next two years, including a Radio Banned compilation of his social satires (songs with titles like Married to Mary, Party of God, and Brain Dead), along with six music for media CDs and a solo project. For more information, go to KnotrillyRecords.com.