Since forming at Flyte in 2013, childhood friends Will Taylor and Nick Hill have continued to evolve—briefly expanding to a quartet before returning to their original partnership two years ago. The duo is known for a familiar, early-era-Beatles-inspired ethos: vulnerable songwriting in tight, bare arrangements that remain imaginative, especially appealing to stereo listeners. Although these compositions make the duo seem self-contained, they openly welcome collaboration. In 2023, Flyte featured collaborations with indie producer Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Hovvdy), English folk artist Laura Marling on “Tough Love,” and actress Florence Pugh and Grammy winner Madison Cunningham on live versions of the songs.
On Between You and Me, their fourth album, Flyte reunited with legendary producer Ethan Johns (Laura Marling, Kings of Leon), who had worked with them on live versions of their last record. Taylor also duets with prominent ‘90s singer-songwriter Aimee Mann on the album single, “Alabaster.” But, by-and-large, Taylor and Hill approached their studio sessions with Johns wanting openness and spontaneity, relying on real-time intuitions and responses to each other in live recordings. Flyte “simply want to sing about their lives in the moment,” and “prefer for their albums to be emotionally complete pictures.” And on Between You and Me, they hold the modesty and gentleness needed to capture and preserve these moments from their lives. They know that revelations in hindsight come from not forcing a response, but from staying open to what emerges with hands earnestly and humbly outstretched.
Flyte aren’t far from their roots either. Their sonic singularity comes from the creative exchange between Taylor and Hill, an intimacy reminiscent of their early reverberant and harmonically stunning covers of various heroes of theirs (Jackson Browne, Alvvays, and many more). They seem to share a kinship in tender disposition—Taylor’s timbre leading something like a quivering lullaby whilst Hill joins in harmony in choruses, or when the two exchange acoustic lines in instrumental sections. Particularly notable in the latter case is “Hello Sunshine”, where Taylor’s vocals play second chair to rhapsodies of bright, exchanged fingerpicking, where he and Hill are almost playful with one another.
Between You and Me isn’t shy about its influences. While the record may initially lack clear stylistic cohesion, a unique connective fabric emerges. “If You Can’t Be Happy” evokes the Jayhawks (Johns co-produced 2003’s Rainy Day Music with Rick Rubin) or the La’s, the arrangement frolicking and kicking its feet. The Elliott Smith-inhabited “Cold Side of the Pillow” chugs along in the midst of teetering between a major and minor emotional key, providing a bittersweet reassurance. If there’s a clear continuity to be gleaned, it might be the record corresponding with the aura of certain American independent films of the ‘90s but sonically—think: early Richard Linklater or Gus Van Sant, slightly opaque 35mm veils that softened scenes and unfolded a dreaminess, or a nostalgia and adult maturity laced with hopefulness at its seams. The record possesses an adjacent gentleness, as Johns preserves a ubiquitous intimacy in various shades. It can feel like settling into a tight yet warm room and hearing just the two of them play.
They try even further this time around to preserve living instances in verse. Flyte is trying to be present; they sing on “Hello Sunshine”: “All our futures are now in present tense / All this music has started making sense.” Likewise, we laboriously slough through ignorance until the right context, person, or feeling clicks everything in place. “Emily & Me” depicts something like a Linklater-like dream of loving attentiveness and inside resonances: calling upon Laurel Canyon for songwriters Jackson Browne and Judee Sill or posing at the headstones of John Candy and John Belushi. The night ends with Taylor singing: “Emily, I see our names in the stars”. On Between You and Me, Flyte wants you to wait in the darkness with them until brightness appears. They aren’t cheap romantics, but rather astronomers beckoning us to turn off our lanterns, allow our eyes to nestle in, and wait until the celestial tapestry becomes unmistakably vivid.
Andrew Ha is a freelance art writer. He hails from Nashville and is currently based in Atlanta. Find more of his essay and memoir work here.
