Red Rose closed its doors almost seven years ago, but the memory thrives with one of its own former baristas prospering across our continent (cannot stress enough how much Ms. Van Etten is succeeding in The States and Canada) representing what Murfreesboro, and a tolling, control-fueled relationship provided muse-wise during a short-stint live in this town. The guy tried to snuff her ambition, but no matter what pain and life experience he provided, she’s shining through in a classy fashion strumming guitars electric and acoustic, as well as an ukulele every now and then in a soft-grunge indie-folk singer/songwriter beat, debuting the album Tramp released by Jagjaguwar Records on February 7th. Utilizing a little over a year’s worth of work into the 12 track LP mixes the likes of a Julie Doirdon’s musical style and the consistently heard mannish vocals of Chan Marshall.
Tramp has recently landed Van Etten spots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and a really good interview/performance on CBC’s Q with Jion Ghameshi, bounding her commitment to the craft and the decent following worth the time and effort promoting Tramp, between finding places to crash around Brooklyn, NY, and proving to her unfortunate muse success is the best revenge.
The beginning track, “Warsaw,” states it with “I want to show you,” and the defending second track, “Give Out,” with “You’re the reason why I moved to the city/You’re why I’ll need to leave,” played to droning guitar strums. Similar notions are heard all the way through Tramps’ introspection with backup vocals sang by Bryce Dessner, a beautifully and almost exact pitch match of Stephen Merritt from the Magnetic Fields. Sparse use of the cello and floor toms for bass notes are ridiculous (in the good sense) on a couple tracks, and there’s even a good march of a song, “Magic Chords,” among everything in the latter half of the album as the production quality steps up track by track the same way every step of this singer’s journey heads.
Sharon Van Etten’s sold-out tour kept her up North for the past few months but gives way to a European stint through England, France, Amsterdam and Germany before landing her back on the West Coast the second half of this month. Her next local appearance will be Mercy Lounge April 26 a couple of days after a Knoxville appearance, if you’re out that way.
Tramp can be found through Amazon and iTunes or sharonvanetten.com.
