Lanue and Ryan Necci and The Buffalo Gospel w/ Molly Brandt at Turf Club

Feeling detached from her previously released work as years lapsed, Duluth, Minnesota’s Sarah Krueger set out to Hive, a small studio nestled near the river in her hometown of Eau Claire, WI. In the course of two separate sessions, (the first on the cusp of a long winter, and the second on the fringe of summer’s swell), Krueger assembled a cast of collaborators to help flesh out a collection of songs that would later become the catalyst for Lanue. Culled from the title of a poem that found its way to Krueger from a thrift store shelf, Lanue comes to us as a project that stands firmly in front of a fresh creative backdrop and boasts a more developed taste and sincerity than Krueger’s previous releases — both a welcome departure and anticipated return.

At the heart of great music is a story, and for that matter, a storyteller. The story of Ryan Necci & The Buffalo Gospel begins with Ryan’s introduction to music through his father’s record collection. Country music mixed with John Prine and Townes Van Zandt was the soundtrack to his growing up in a small, lower middle-class farm town in Wisconsin. The songs of love and loss and unfulfilled dreams seeped into him as a child and later as a songwriter, helping form his distinct Country/Americana style.

Based in Minnesota, Molly Brandt is a captivating artist who paints vivid, unvarnished pictures of blue-collar struggles, heartache, and revenge, delivering them with glitz, style, and attitude. She has a rich, varied musical background, but she found her songwriting voice in Americana music. After teaching herself guitar and songwriting during the pandemic lockdown, she released her first singles in 2022 and was soon performing at venues and festivals across the Midwest. In July 2023, she unveiled her highly praised debut album, Surrender to the Night.