As the June calendar melted into July, Angela Autumn made a welcome return to New York City as a solo act, stepping into the dim glow of Night Club 101 for an exclusive performance showcasing her unreleased sophomore record, Believer. The room was intimate, but it’s evenings like these that make you feel part of something quietly extraordinary, an artist still tucked away like a best-kept secret just before the wider world discovers her. I was completely spellbound from beginning to end.

The Appalachian-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter is carving out a landscape entirely her own, one audiences have affectionately dubbed “The Rose of Appalachia.” Bending genres with ease, her music settles somewhere between grunge folk and psychedelia pop, weaving clawhammer banjo into arrangements that pay homage to her Alleghany roots. Voices like Autumn Angela are few and far between; it’s difficult to place your finger on a direct comparison. There’s a raw grit weathered into every song, but it’s softened by a warmth that feels almost ancestral, and with every new track you’re drawn deeper beneath the forest canopy she’s cultivated. There’s a cinematic quality to the music that carries you straight into the Appalachian Mountains; close your eyes, and you can almost feel the breeze brushing your skin, smell the earth after rainfall, and suddenly you’re caught beneath a spell, swaying before you even realize you’ve begun.

Autumn’s sophomore record, Believer, continues expanding that landscape piece by piece, song by song. The record reaches toward rougher terrain while still embracing the mountain music listeners have come to cherish. The result feels remarkably fresh in a musical landscape increasingly driven by fleeting viral moments and clipped-down attention spans. Instead, Believer gathers introspection and immersion into the same campfire, stirring them together until they become something peacefully mesmerizing. The most beautiful part, however, is the process itself. The record was written in the woods of Tennessee, inside a rural treehouse in Asheville, and within a friend’s warehouse in Chattanooga. The imagery isn’t manufactured; it’s been lived, breathed, weathered, and reflected back through rich, deeply rooted lyricism. That atmosphere is further nurtured by the musical garden cultivated alongside multi-instrumentalist and producer Baerd, who gives Autumn’s vision the room it needs to bloom naturally.

The album arrives September 11 through Gar Hole Records and follows a remarkable chapter for the songwriter, seeing her open for Bonny Light Horseman, Cut Worms, Langhorne Slim, and others while also earning the SXSW Developing Artist Grulke Prize, an honor previously bestowed upon now-household names including Leon Bridges, HAIM, Anderson .Paak, and Future Islands. Audiences received their first glimpse of Believer just days earlier on June 29 with “Mountain Stream,” an illuminously fitting lead single for an artist whose creative spirit remains deeply tethered to the rhythms of nature. The song and its striking music video are available now HERE.

Autumn personifies the release, elucidating:

“The song ‘Mountain Stream’ is a slack-tuned anthem about escaping something. It came to me one night when I was on a medicine journey and felt very otherworldly. I began singing words that did not feel like my own. But I think I was unearthing something deep inside of me. The mountain is a powerful image to me in my healing. It represents new heights and accomplishments, something monumental that is not easily perceived by the senses, but is felt internally. When making the video I wanted to show feminine power through dance. We collaborated with a few dancers and musicians and I made up some choreography. The song was entirely tracked live, minus the banjo and the loud primal hollers me and Isaiah added. I love that he had the faith in me to record it and it turned out to be the last song of six we tracked during our studio day. It had rained all day, so we really got to drop in and turn it up.”

On June 22, New York City received its very first glimpse of Believer tucked into the crevices of the Lower East Side. I can only imagine the way these songs will continue to swell once Autumn inevitably outgrows rooms like Night Club 101, but in that moment, they seemed perfectly suited for the intimacy surrounding them. Throughout the evening, Autumn often reflected on the creative process behind Believer, sharing that many of the songs explored deeply personal subjects, while the act of recording them became its own form of healing, allowing emotions that had long remained buried to finally find daylight. For 45 minutes, it felt as though Autumn had gently split open her heart and invited us to quietly leaf through the pages inside. It had been some time since Autumn last wandered through the city that never sleeps; she joked that her previous visit revolved around a lighter fiddle project, making the emotional weight of these newer songs feel even more profound. It was if she had entrusted with the a diary she’d protected for years, and the audience responded with remarkable tenderness, holding their breath through the moment that asked not for applause, but for quiet reverence.

The setlist leaned heavily toward unreleased material, but that never weakened the audience’s connection. Time and time again, Angela Autumn extended an invisible hand and gently drew us deeper into her world, inviting us to absorb each song on a more instinctive, emotional level. During one track, she crooned, “do you wanna get married at the Cumberland,” before laughing, “NYC, do you even know where that is?” Midway through the evening, Autumn softened the room even further, delivering a waltz that had couples instinctively reaching for one another. By that point, I had moved toward the back of the venue so I wouldn’t obstruct longtime fans, and I found myself standing behind the sweetest couple who held each other tighter through the song. It reminded me exactly why evenings like these matter. They’re not meant to overwhelm with spectacle or dazzling production; they’re places where we pause long enough to breathe, to gather ourselves, and simply exist beside one another. “Rocky Doom,” an older track dating back to 2024, became my personal standout of the evening, and you could feel its emotional weigh trippling not only through Autumn herself, but quietly across the entire room.

While Believer still lingers just beyond the horizon, waiting for its September release, Angela Autumn continues to blossom into one of the most compelling voices emerging from today’s folk landscape. With festival appearances throughout the United States and an upcoming European and United Kingdom tour supporting Fink, she feels destined to become a cherished voice for listeners searching for something rooted, timeless, and beautifully human.