Introducing Molly Brandt and a new wave of Americana artists in the Twin Cities

You can credit the pandemic — and the misery and free time it brought with it — for bringing both the twanger and the songwriter out of Molly Brandt.

“I always wanted to write songs, but lacked the self-confidence,” recalled Brandt, who had been involved in music most of her life. She played piano as a kid and performed in a jazz combo coming out of college.

“During COVID,” she continued, “I was broke, bored, alone, all of that. It was like: If I’m ever going to do it, now’s the time.”

When Brandt did finally start writing tunes in her mid-20s, it made sense to her to channel them though her country music influences. See: the aforementioned “broke, bored, alone” part, key ingredients in good country songs.

Just a few years later, Brandt is now a leading name in an exciting new wave of alt-twang/Americana acts in the Twin Cities scene. (We spotlight four more artists in this wave below.)

Her first album, “Surrender to the Night” — made up of some of those first songs she wrote while in lockdown — earned her a smattering of radio play and a best Americana artist nod from the Midwest Country Music Awards last year. Her second album, “American Saga,” already arrived last week and is being celebrated with a hometown release party Friday at Icehouse in Minneapolis.

Brandt is proud to be part of a new crop of smart and meaningful twangers — a tide in which “you’ll see members of the queer community taking line-dancing lessons at the Eagles Club” she noted. Or you’ll see young, progressive singers like her taking part in Shania Twain or Dolly Parton tribute shows at the Turf Club.

“A lot of us grew up listening to country music but then rejected it when it really started to lack depth and become pandering,” Brandt said.

She and other young songwriters in this scene are bringing the heart and brain back to the genre. “We’re sort of reclaiming it,” she said.

Brandt’s songs are pretty dang smart, too. A graduate of Drake University — she has since worked day jobs for such nonprofit organizations as Mixed Blood Theatre and American Composers Forum — she tackles such heady topics as addiction, capitalism, sexual harassment and the death of small towns on the aptly titled “American Saga” album.

“They demolished grandpa’s roadside stand / Built a highway and a parking lot,” Brandt sings in “Dollar Stores & Strip Malls,” one of the new record’s rockiest highlights. “They closed down that city center / And they tore out every sidewalk.”

In the thickly twangy “Mr. Texas” — a duet with Texas singer Reilly Downes, with whom Brandt toured this past spring — she sizes up a big shot in the Twin Cities scene who she said acted like a good ol’ boy to get away with bad predatory behavior:

“He’s just taking up all your space / With his slimy disposition / We don’t associate with that round here / He’s a bastard nobody’s missing.”

Raised mostly in a suburb of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the 29-year-old auburn-haired singer has an affinity for both rural and urban stories, she said, “and the traits and troubles we all share as Americans.” She used to complain when her mom took her on what she called “Iowa adventure days” to see odd or historic sites around the state, but now she said, “I think those actually influenced me a lot.”

Brandt’s mom died between the making of her first album and this one. She doesn’t sing about the loss at all — “I’m still processing it too much,” she said — but she said it motivated her to work harder on “American Saga.”

“She worried about having a daughter going into music, just being concerned for my financial well-being,” Brandt recalled. “But she told me before she died she was really happy and proud of me for doing this. She said, ‘I should’ve known all along this is where you would end up.’”

Brandt also had another close relation to spur her on during the making of her new record: guitarist and romantic partner Eric Carranza, with whom she now shares a house near St. Paul’s Como Park where a lot of the music was created.

Also a collaborator of R&B innovator Lady Midnight and a member of the jammy rock band Jest, Carranza helped Brandt flesh out arrangements on “American Saga” that sometimes don’t sound very Americana at all. There are disco-y dance beats in the sexual groover “Sunup” and a full-on holy-house gospel vibe in “Daughter of the Oil Tycoon.”

Asked about those sonic variations, Brandt said, “I’m still new to this and don’t claim to have a specific vision for what direction I’ll go in. I don’t want to be boxed in.

“Eric helped me take risks I maybe wouldn’t have taken on my own,” she added.

Risks are not exactly commonplace in country music nowadays. That’s another quality Brandt hopes to bring back to the music.

----

Here are four other young Americana/alt-twang artists worth checking out in the Twin Cities scene.

After a decade-plus of playing drums for rock acts like Little Man and Ol’ Yeller, Ryan Otte stepped out from behind the kit pre-pandemic to sing and pick some of his favorite alt-twang and outlaw country tunes under this pseudonym. Post-pandemic, his alter-ego has turned into one of the best live country bands in town, with guitarist Dan Lowinger (who also plays with Clare Doyle) and a large repertoire of classic tunes, including a lot of Texas classics from Billy Joe Shaver to George Strait. Otte also has a growing grab bag of original tunes, too, highlighted by the new EP “Trailer Park Troubadour.”

Next gigs: Oct. 16, Whisky Wednesday at Palmer’s Bar, Mpls. (monthly show); and Oct. 26, Honky-Tonk Halloween at Dusty’s Bar, Mpls.; colediamondmusic.com.

Falling somewhere between Margo Price and early Kacey Musgraves for sonic comparisons, the St. Paul singer/songwriter — who moved home from New Orleans during the pandemic — has been in heavy rotation on the Current in recent months with her crowded-house-themed single “Devices.” That follows a steady string of gigs in 2024, including slots at the State Fair and First Ave’s Best New Bands showcase. She’s heading south on tour next month and dropping a new EP to go with it, fittingly led by a twanged-up love song about road travel, “Maybelline.”

Next gig: Oct. 11, Fine Line, Mpls.; claredoyle.com.

Minneapolis singer/songwriter Geoffrey Lamar Wilson put a new spin on the concept of Americana music on his debut EP as Laamar, “Flowers,” which featured songs about America’s — and specifically Minnesota’s — racial reckoning of recent years. Musically, he evokes Iron & Wine’s and Ben Harper’s rockier neo-twang styles, but there are still traces of the rootsy traditional folk music he sang while living in New York with his previous group, Jus Post Bellum. His urgent new single “Dream/Grief” is the first off a record he’s planning for release next year.

Next gig: Nov. 22, the Hook & Ladder Theater, Mpls.; linktr.ee/laamar.

This Minneapolis-based quintet’s chief selling point is the boy/girl vocal interplay between Milwaukee-reared bandleader Jake Balistrieri and fellow guitarist Sarah Mevissen. With loose and rowdy but twang-rock backing, the best songs on their 2002 debut LP, such as “Good at Being Alone” and “Blue to Gray,” sound like John Prine and Iris DeMent’s classic duets backed by Uncle Tupelo. The group is holding off on live gigs at the moment but just finished its second album with producer Holly Hansen, working toward its release by year’s end.

Website: pitstopnice.com.

With: Roe Family Singers, Jest.

When: 8 p.m. Fri. (dance lessons 7 p.m.)

Where: Icehouse, 2528 Nicollet Av. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $20, icehousempls.com.