Slyly intense and disarmingly earnest,
Bryn Battani is a Minneapolis-based writer/performer who loves to say the opposite of what she really means.
Influenced by artists like Fiona Apple, Andrew Bird, and St. Vincent, she supports her “persona pop” songs with arrangements colored by her folk-rock roots and theatrical background. Props and costume changes heighten her shapeshifting stage presence while her songs oscillate between tongue-in-cheek melodrama and raw vulnerability, examining social politics, thorny entanglements, and other modern absurdities.
Growing up in Austin, Texas, Bryn immersed herself in the area’s dynamic theater and music scenes, co-producing her debut EP All I Have to Offer You Is Anything You Want with Curtis McMurtry and Diana Burgess (of Austin’s Mother Falcon) in 2020. Her latest release, Guest Room, ruminates on distance and desire, serving up a strong dose of wit and self-awareness.
Funded by the Jerome Foundation’s Cedar Commissions, Bryn will debut a rock operetta in February 2026 that explores themes of credibility and authority in an age of algorithms, educational censorship, and commodified desire. Morphing between unreliable narrators influenced by hidden agendas, blatant biases, and genuine intentions, she playfully questions where we get our information and who we trust.
(Read more about the 2025-26 Cedar Commissions.)
“Battani … is all vulnerability wrapped up in a blanket of enigmatic charm.”
-MPR’s The Current
“I could go on and on about the genius that is Bryn Battani and her band.”
-Girl at the Rock Shows
GUEST ROOM
out everywhere
“On her third EP Guest Room, due June 7th, Bryn Battani finds herself at a distance from seemingly everything. Written over the course of a year across two continents, and recorded between quick sessions in Austin studios and on the floors of Uptown Minneapolis apartments, Guest Room wasn’t given the opportunity to truly plant itself anywhere.
As a result, there’s a restlessness that roots its way into the colorful arrangements and adventurous song structures that defined her past releases like 2023’s Hang Your Clothes. Angsty folk-rock opener “Ya Don’t Think?” immediately highlights Battani’s knack for capturing vivid scenes in her writing—she makes you a fly on the wall of an uncomfortable visit to a partner’s hometown, serving up a strong dose of wit and dose of self-awareness.
“So-Lo” sprawls out beneath Czech winter’s abbreviated daylight, yearning for a connection that would never really come to fruition. Flute lines wilt over melancholic guitar figures, as Battani recalls moments of intimacy that remain out of reach.
Even the freewheeling Americana rock of “Dicey (The Floor Song)” is driven by frustration. Complete with the train chugging brush snare and ripping fiddles that recall Bright Eyes’ Cassadaga, the tune was first drafted on a bus ride after crashing on an unlikely floor the previous night. But beneath its energetic front, “Dicey” reveals itself to be just as uncertain, as Battani collapses into questioning why her effort and openness can’t be reciprocated.
By the time the project reaches Elliot Smith-influenced “Weighted Blanket” and “~The Thing~” it fully embraces its own unease, perhaps for lack of anything else to embrace. The songs are colder and obtusely arranged, effectively highlighting Battani’s always-unexpected chord choices. Guest Room will have you pulled in close, even if there isn’t much of any warmth to be found.”
-Anna Solomon, Solo’s Albums
Hear the third single now.
