Appalachia to Nashville: Angela Autumn live at The East Room
Angela Autumn has the ability to make a crowd go quiet without ever asking for it. From the second she hit the stage, the room was hers. As she gathered her instruments, adjusted her mic, and counted herself in, the room stood still. It wasn't until the first strum of her guitar that the audience seemed to exhale, hips swaying to the music before a single word even left her mouth.
Last week, country-folk artist Angela Autumn brought her set to Nashville’s East Room, opening up for Nate Head’s album release show. As a contributor to his new album, she was invited to open for him and sing alongside him during his set. Though she was there to warm the crowd up for Head, she was still able to make the space her own. Through her melodic songwriting and boot-stomping rhythms, the audience was instantly pulled into her world.
Deeply rooted in Appalachian tradition, Autumn weaves together qualities of folk, Americana, and country roots, bringing an unwavering authenticity to her music.
On her 2021 album, “Frontiers Woman”, she dives headfirst into that vintage sound, fully stepping into her identity as a songwriter. Written and produced by Autumn, she delivers tracks like “Old Time Lovers”, “Shooter”, and “Sowin’ Seeds”, merging sounds of both past and present country, creating a time machine through her music.
In Autumn’s most recent project, “I’m not around”, she modernizes her catalogue. Turning inwards, reflecting on her own mistakes and how that affects her relationships. In the opening track “Electric Lizard”, she tackles this theme head-on:
“My disguise is only good as my fucking lies,” sings Autumn. She laments about having to suffer the consequences of her own actions. Her lies have run out, her disguise is fading, and now it's all catching up to her.
As the audience danced and nodded their heads, she continued to play tracks off her EP, such as “Rocky Doom” and “Roving Jewel”, while making time to deliver one-liners to the crowd, at one point posing the question:
“Do you like music?” Making the crowd clap and yell in agreement. “Do you like live music?” she asks again, almost taunting them, leading them to scream and holler, like they have to prove they mean what they say.
She then goes on to close the set with her song “Sage Bundle”, a guitar-heavy track about unrequited love.
“This is a song about being horny in the desert,” says Autumn, immediately starting the song before people can register what she’s said. With head-scratching poetry, “Sage Bundle’s” imagery brings the song to life. Renaissance dresses, dramamine bullseyes, and old ladies’ driveways, describing her nights of “high desert dreaming", Autumn wraps her set euphorically.
Autumn is currently touring all over the US, but you can see her back in Nashville on September 14, at The Basement East, before she sets out on her West Coast tour, taking her through California and Oregon, playing Los Angeles on October 24, at Gold Diggers.
By Addison Farris