“trampstamp,” the new single from Nashville-based singer Angela Autumn, arrived with so little public acknowledgement from its creator, I worried at first that it might be one of those bastard AI impersonation tracks cropping up on artist pages like boll weevils. One obvious fact quickly disproved this paranoia: The song’s psychedelic, droning invocation of Appalachia sounds unlike anything currently available in Autumn’s catalog. Surely a bot trying to masquerade as the up-and-coming rocker would employ her trademark twang—a country elocution so strong-willed, it scoffs at Spotify’s classification of Men I Trust or the Japanese House as “Indie Twang”—over a rhythm-driven, radio-ready ditty like her most-streamed track “Electric Lizard,” not these shifting swells of synth and strings that edge on the acoustic trance of raga.
All to say: “trampstamp” is a brooding departure for Autumn, and a decidedly human one—never has her singing sounded so abrasive, so faltering, and so flesh-and-blood. The song builds a repetitive guitar riff into a foreboding storm cloud of cinematic Americana. Autumn introduces a mule-driving misfit who “can’t hold a rhyme,” then slant-rhymes a litany for eight lines straight: “A feminist transplant/A permanent tramp stamp/I’m dancing on the land/I got me a Trans Am/You can’t walk where I have/Been pissed on and spat at/Been cussed out and laughed at/You can’t take the backlash.” Her voice cuts with the gravel of a road you no longer like to walk down. “I don’t like to linger,” she admits, lingering ironically before sputtering off into Sue Tompkins-style murmurations. The drone continues on, therapeutic, enthralling. Autumn’s music has always captivated, but on “trampstamp,” hypnosis is experimental medicine she’s trying on herself.
For Angela Autumn
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