‘Remember Me Like Birds On The Wind’ by Andy Aylward | Album Premiere
Exclusive album premiere of ‘Remember Me Like Birds On The Wind’ by Andy Aylward, out April 25th, 2023.
‘Remember Me Like Birds On The Wind’ is the second album from Austin-via-Washington DC songwriter Andy Aylward. The 8-track collection of melancholy janglers was recorded in New York, LA and Austin and was mixed by D. James Goodwin. Guest contributions include Emmett Kelly (The Cairo Gang, Bonnie Prince Billy) and Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo, Cate Le Bon).
Listen to the album below and read Aylward’s account of making ‘Remember Me Like Birds On The Wind’ in the midst of multiple cross-country moves.
“I started writing ‘Remember Me Like Birds On The Wind’ at the beginning of 2020 while living downtown in New York. At this time I was working part time in a guitar shop and performing with some regularity, including a successful short run of shows with my band at the end of February. ‘No Surrender’ was the first song I finished in this period. Once it became clear that Covid was going to be a big problem, I left NYC in a hurry and spent 3 months alone in a deserted New Jersey beach town. I wrote about half the songs on the album in this period. Then I relocated to the San Francisco area to be nearer to my family given the pandemic situation and the unappealing prospect of going back to New York at this time. In California I began recording some of the songs even though I wasn’t done writing the album yet. Part of the reason for this was to record with my brother Jamie who played drums on two of the album’s more “rock” songs. He would soon leave the U.S. for Paris. I made a crummy little studio in the place I was living and kept writing and recording for the album. I wrote to the musician Emmett Kelly (a musical hero of mine) and asked him to arrange and perform the song ‘Conversation,’ luckily for me he said yes. At this stage (Fall 2020) I went back to school remotely and got a graduate degree in public administration. I did not work on the record again until one session in April 2021 where I randomly hooked up with an amazing piano player named JT Thomas who was in the 70s experimental rock scene in LA. I then moved to Austin, TX (Fall 2021) to take a position in my new field of public administration. I would not touch the album again until Spring 2022. I spent most of that summer simultaneously writing and recording the rest of the album in my apartment. I finished it around August and it was mixed and finalized in November. Thematically ‘Remember Me Like Birds On The Wind’ mediate on death, legacy, memory, the desire to escape, the purity of childhood and the isolation of modern cities. ‘No Surrender’ was inspired by the passing of David Berman of Silver Jews after I attended a memorial for him at the old Whitney museum. I write my songs on the guitar and generally compose the music and lyrics at the same time — occasionally I will work on lyrics a la carte on my laptop but only once the structure is established. On this album I tried to balance brash traditional rock arrangements against more gentle acoustic songs. I avoided using any synthesized musical elements.” Andy Aylward
Andy Aylward Instagram / Bandcamp / YouTube
