Carmie takes country’s confessional tradition to an Aarhus balcony on ‘Side B Stories’

European indie’s appetite for country-inflected songwriting has been growing steadily, and Scandinavian artists have found in Nashville’s confessional tradition a natural complement to their own emotionally direct approach to the song. Carmie, an Aarhus-based singer-songwriter who has spent the past two years building one of the more interesting catalogs in Denmark’s independent scene — “Learn To Live” in 2025, a run of singles since — has been moving toward this moment: a record that names its country influences openly and trusts them to carry the weight.

That record is “Side B Stories,” and it takes its name from a real place: the balcony of a friend’s flat in Aarhus, where Carmie and her circle gather to swap the kind of stories that rarely survive intact into pop music — the crush that went sideways, the night out that turned into something, the people who shaped you before the right person finally arrived. That source material gives the EP an unusual texture. These are social songs, built from shared experience rather than pure personal confession, which suits the country idiom perfectly: Dolly Parton and Shania Twain have always understood that the best stories belong to everyone who recognizes them.

Carmie under red stage lighting, promotional photo — Photo: Carmie / Potato Head PR

The named songs span the emotional range without overreaching. “Boy, I’m A Woman” arrives with exactly the Shania Twain energy the press notes promise — confident, a little knowing, the kind of track that understands its own swagger. “Reputation To Maintain” maps the anxiety of the dating-app era onto a form that country has always handled with precision: the managed social performance, the fear of wanting too much in public. “Stranger In The Park” is more cinematic, a teenage love story with enough perspective baked in to feel both nostalgic and immediate. The single “First Flight To France,” released in August and picked up early by UK outlets, adds a travel dimension to the same territory — two people connecting somewhere bigger than either of them expected.

The record was produced with Rasmus Vigant, co-produced by Carmie herself — a partnership that keeps the arrangements lean enough for the writing to do its work. The Lizzy McAlpine influence Carmie cites sits alongside the more structural ambitions of the Parton songbook without either pulling against the other. The country-pop hybrid “Side B Stories” builds doesn’t feel like a genre experiment. It sounds like the natural place where these songs were always going to land.

“Side B Stories” is out September 18 and available to stream on Spotify. For an Aarhus singer-songwriter who has been quietly building her audience since “Learn To Live,” the record is the clearest statement yet of where her instincts actually live.

Tags: Carmie, country-pop songs, Danish singer-songwriters, Rasmus Vigant, Side B Stories