5 Questions with Bryn Battani

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Ann Treacy—I was introduced to Bryn Battani by Samuel Wilbur, which is symptomatic of how quickly and deeply this Texan jumped into the Twin Cities music community. Her Western twanged chamber pop is bringing a refreshing sound to the great North. You can catch her at Underground Music Café on April 12 for the release of her upcoming Guest Room.

Please tell us about yourself and your music.

I’ve always been a word person. Language is so endlessly delightful and fascinating to me, and manipulating it along with sound has always been the way I process the world. The influence of my background in theater is undeniable, as well as all the folk sounds of Austin, Texas.

As a middle school theater kid, I discovered the musical Once, in which the actors play gorgeous arrangements of the music of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. The show has this very quiet intimacy that I found myself really drawn to—I felt totally caught in the ebb and flow of the dynamics and intensity of the performances. I started writing my own songs at the piano, processing the insecurities and new feelings as I grew up, accompanying myself by sounding out minimalist chord outlines.

I also fell in love with orchestral Austin band/collective Mother Falcon, who runs a week-long songwriting summer camp for students of any instrument. That gave me the opportunity to really think about narrative and arranging, both of which I continued to explore throughout college while studying English and Music at Carleton College in Northfield (which led to my landing in Minnesota). I ended up co-producing my first EP with Mother Falcon cellist Diana Burgess and incredible Austin writer Curtis McMurtry. I think having great guidance during that first-ever recording experience has given me confidence to go forth and take a more DIY approach to my last EP Hang Your Clothes and my upcoming release Guest Room.

How have you been able to jump so deeply into the Minnesota music scene so quickly? (Any advice for others?)

Ha! When I visited my family in Texas for Christmas, I actually drew out a diagram of all the people I’ve played with since moving to the Cities in September… quite a beautiful mess. I had a bit of familiarity with the scene from occasionally driving up to catch bigger touring acts while I was in school in Northfield the last few years, but I wanted to know more about what was happening locally, so I guess I just started going to lots of shows. Working at a music store also helped me find bandmates.

I like being really direct and going out of my way to tell people whenever I hear them doing something interesting in their music, so I’ve definitely met people just through sharing that excitement. I guess that’s how I met the folks in Full Catholic, who introduced me to Samuel Wilbur, the first person I collaborated on a writing project with here and joined on keyboard for his Icehouse release show. That’s also how I met Garrett, who gave me a reason to start playing accordion in his group St. Rangers. The reason I know the folks in Dog Gamn, my “stoner band,” is that I came up to the Cities on a date last year, and they happened to be on that bill. In December, I asked them to play the first show I booked here at Palmer’s, and now I’m in their band. Wild!

I have a very broad and eclectic taste, which seems to have led me to quite a variety of little niches. The fun thing about writing genre-ambiguous music is that I can curate bills with wildly different-sounding bands. I’ve learned so much by learning songs by other writers and really getting to know their styles and idiosyncrasies.

I guess my advice is just talk to people. I feel like there’s a weird music culture thing of trying to act like you don’t care, but we’re all it in because we do care, so I like showing people that.

Your upcoming album, Guest Room, feels like an intimate look at someone’s relationship, except they are basing their story on outside reviews. As if they are living in the guest room of their own life – close in proximity, but also held at an arm’s length. I’m interested in the journey of the album.

What a journey it was. You hit it right on the head—this whole project was about exploring that sense of distance. I wrote the first track after a really weird trip I took to visit someone I was seeing, who ended up being very unavailable the whole time, physically and emotionally. I was staying in this little Airbnb and felt so close to this thing I had wanted for a long time, but at such an uncomfortable distance.

After that, I lived in Prague for a semester. “So-Lo” is very influenced by the fact that I was living in an unfamiliar space, on the other side of the world from someone I wanted to be with. “Dicey (The Floor Song)” is all about brutally uncomfortable proximity to a past relationship that’s no longer accessible, and “Weighted Blanket” outlines the emotional gap that opened when the physical one closed. “~The Thing~” starts out detached and empty—how I felt after a cold rejection—then builds itself back up.

I wrote these five songs over the course of one year, across two continents, then recorded them between speedy sessions on quick trips to Austin and home studio setups in various Minneapolis apartments. I would not necessarily recommend making music that way and will probably never do it like that again, but I think there’s a beauty in how the messiness of the process manifested in a project centered around instability and unease.

I walk in the woods often. Sometimes it’s very quiet and some days you can hear animals, wind, the River and even the trees. The Thing is like walking in the woods on a loud day – each sound tells its own story but everything unites. How do you come up with such a rich soundscape?

This is such a thoughtful question! I wrote this song on a “loud day” when someone ended a relationship with me, saying I no longer made his depressive episodes “better.” My head filled up with that cacophony of voices that yell at you after a big rejection, telling me I wasn’t enough.

My main idea was for the song to gradually build in confidence and self-assurance, then break free by erupting into triumphant squealing trumpet and flute chaos. I knew I wanted to bring Gabriela Torres (of Austin indie folk outfit Large Brush Collection) and Liam Lord (my high school crush) into a room together and let the improvisation ensue. I told them to just chatter wildly with each other, and we kept that first take. That was a very satisfying producer moment.

This track was very much built through the aforementioned messy recording process. Before the first session, Liam was like, “it’s bold of you to record these without working out the kinks through live performances first,” since I hadn’t played them at all with anyone at that point. If I were to do it again, I would certainly approach the tracking process differently; nevertheless, it was just so entertaining to hear the track evolve as JT (fiddle) and Nathaniel (guitar) interpreted the parts I wrote for them and added their distinct voices to the sonic soup.

Please tell us about the upcoming release show.

Underground Music Cafe on 4/12 at 7:00! I’m so excited about this lineup. I fell in love with Oftener from their big dynamic shifts (and mutual obsession with Andy Shauf), and I’m so excited to hear the acoustic “Softener” edition. Rabeca brings so much harmonic interest and improvisatory goodness, and I’m jazzed (ha) for their saxophone player Anna to join my band for the night. Dani Erin is a bona-fide rock star with tight arrangements from a killer band.

I’ll actually be opening a little window into the creative process behind “~The Thing~” by covering a song by local band Willow Creek Brothers that inspired it thematically, in addition to revealing the dramatic breakup anthem I wrote as a precursor. I abandoned it for a reason, but this seemed like a good time to bring it back.

I’m also beyond excited to celebrate the release of my next single alongside a rollicking Americana-rock lineup at Icehouse on 5/4, with local icon Jake Baldwin joining my band on trumpet… it’s May the Fourth, so you can expect something special for that, of course. Come say hi!