The Oh Hellos - Zephyrus (2020)

Zephyrus is the final EP in a series of four that was named after one of the four Greek mythological wind deities that bring the seasons. The series is driven by the overarching question: "Where did my ideas come from?" With each EP and the "wind" it represents, siblings Tyler and Maggie Heath explore the stages of answering that question.

"We felt like we needed more time to expand on our ideas than a standard LP would have given us; we like to keep each of our albums more or less contained to a single idea or theme, and we had a lot to say about this one. Releasing this music serially is also giving us time to really refine our thoughts for each EP-letting us express them as best we can, not just as quickly as we can," note Tyler and Maggie.

Below please find additional commentary from Tyler and Maggie on Zephyrus as well as their previously released EP's Boreas, Eurus and Notos.

Zephyrus, the last cardinal wind of this project, brought the gentle warmth of spring that summoned up a new year of growth. The kind of growth we could see in ourselves, should we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. A growth rooted in the fertile ashes of all the structures that keep us isolated, numb, and hardened in the first place. The arrangements mirror that shift, rising up like tender leaves breaking through concrete and cascading like the first thaw of the season.

Boreas, the northern wind, ushers in the harsh frosts of lonely winter. The arrangements evoke images of snow-blanketed darkness, candlelight behind cupped hands, and a vast night sky ribboned with stars and auroras. As we wrote these songs, we found ourselves confronted with the ways we've reflected this-how we often avoid discomfort, even at the expense of others, until we are left cold, hard, and unfeeling. In this record, we ask the winter to instead kindle us into something warmer and softer than who we've been.

Once you've asked that first question, it opens the floodgates for more of them. Wrestling with them all can ultimately lead to a fuller understanding of the world around you and leave you with more empathy than you started with, but unfortunately can also leave you feeling alienated from the communities you used to identify with. Since Eurus was the wind most closely associated with autumn, we wanted the music to capture the feeling of dark woods, dry branches, dead leaves, and wondering who had migrated-you, or your flock?

Most of Notos is about the two of us reflecting on a time when we weren't even aware there was a question to ask. Musically, we were trying to recreate the feeling of the summers we spent exploring the Pacific Northwest with our grandparents when we were kids, as well as our experience growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast and dealing with the frequent threats of/evacuations from hurricanes-because Notos is the wind that brought violent summer storms, which felt like a good thematic parallel to the backfire effect you experience when you're confronted with new information for the first time.