Release Date: Friday 10/29/21
Fly South by Cincinnati based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Collins is an album on the precipice of many things. Presenting itself with the intimacy of a Laurel Canyon strummer that’s as warm as a late afternoon wooden porch, songs on Fly South open up into a widescreen, panoramic indie rock that recalls the post-Radiohead era of early-aughts UK based indie rock - think Wilco channeling the drama of Last Broadcast era Doves or Gang of Losers era The Dears. Rather than pastiche, these two musical inclinations run into one another like dovetailing rivers, moving the ten songs on Fly South towards each of their cathartic ends. Like the migrating birds referenced in the album’s title, there is an irresistible force in these songs that lead home. Wherever or whatever that is.

Recorded by John Curley of Afghan Whigs fame, Fly South contains an audible warmth that settles in at the sub-dermal layer of the skin. Recorded with close musical contributor and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Patota (FLOCKS), lyrically Collins weaves personal narratives with the stories and histories communicated to us through rivers, forests and through the voice of our lost loved ones. A recording of Collins’ grandfather, a recently passed poet, closes out “River” like a short-wave broadcast carried on a raft of drone from another plane. A new father, Collins approaches these compositions as if shaping them for future generations. Even in the loosest and most expansive tracks where airy synthesizers, droning guitars and free percussion are given land to roam, no note feels superfluous or vowel wasted as the ephemeral is described in exquisite detail. An archive of an ever shifting present.

While previous releases were focused on the transient and fleeting beauty of getting a bunch of friends in the same room to play his songs to a receptive audience of fans and friends (what an unbelievable luxury!), Fly South sounds much more etched in stone. A conceived and executed concept from start to end that asks the question: What do we mean when we say we are going home? Answers come in the form of the close comfort of a committed romantic relationship (“Slow Waltz”), the universal home that being alone in the woods provides (“Sundown”, “Mountain Song”), reaching out into the unknown and experiencing the catharsis of coming home to yourself after wandering in a spiritual wilderness (“Coletrane’s Ghost”) or standing in the awareness of the all-consuming present (“Windows / Doors”). There is an intentional blurring of the lines between physical and non-physical homes that offer similar refuge.

Best taken in its entirety, Fly South offers a temporary refuge nestled within its ten songs. While pulling from various threads of Country, Indie Rock, Jazz and Ambient music, Fly South flows as a single body out from these multiple tributaries.