Paper Airplane

There's a saying in Ohio: If you don't like the weather just wait a couple minutes and it'll change. Likewise, PAPER AIRPLANE has set its path on creating melodic, vocal-based indie pop that never really goes where you think it will.

Gentle indie pop often turns into something more experimental and rough - sometimes within the same song. The point is the craft of song-writing, in lieu of vacuous trends.

The band has release two LPs, including the 2007 critic's favorite "Middlemarch" (All Hail Records) and the 2009 "White Elephants," recorded with Cincinnati engineer Brian Niesz (Heartless Bastards). The group is gearing up for its third LP in 2010.

"Middlemarch" was released to critical praise and radio play across the country. Columbus Alive called it among the top releases from the city in the past 30 years.

"Middlemarch is an exquisite record filled with brilliant musings on the minutia of daily life," Columbus Alive reporter John Ross wrote.

Featured on college radio stations across the United States and Canada, Paper Airplane has been a featured band on the influential Nic Harcourt's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" and other KCRW shows. The group's music is often featured by clothing company Hollister and has appeared on television shows such as Roadtrip Nation.

Paper Airplane has supported such national recording artists as Mates of State, Heartless Bastards, The Walkmen, Rogue Wave, Matt Pond PA, The National, Robbers on High Street, The Redwalls, Richard Swift, Howlin' Maggie, the legendary Dick Dale, The Minders and more.

"They are quirky and hard to pin down," critic Kari Wethington wrote. "Too sweet to be punk rock, too earnest to be indie rock, too loud to be folk."

The group has mobilized a dedicated regional following based on a tight, decidedly more aggressive and spirited sound than those shows of the past. With drummer Antonio Garza, and keyboardist Teresa Kent-Horns, Ryan Horns and his band have found a way to avoid trends and focus entirely on the craft of song-writing, while always staying true to themselves.



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WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING ABOUT PAPER AIRPLANE

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• "I'm a professional music critic, which means I get paid to listen to music but also that listening to music -- one of my favorite hobbies -- has become work. Doing what I do means you have to come up with interesting things to say about music you hate, awful sounding releases other people claim are important and really challenging things that otherwise I'd turn off and toss aside. I wouldn't trade my gig for anything, but I miss being able to listen to music just to listen. That's why Paper Airplane's debut record is my favorite of the year: It takes absolutely no effort to like. Singer Ryan Horns, who writes all the songs, is a discipline of The Beatles (he'd probably say John, I'd argue Paul), and his songs have a bit of that intangible magic of Revolver and Abbey Road -- the alchemy fans are still trying to wrap their minds around and nail down. Songs like "Keeping Things Whole" and "Fire Escape" are immediately inviting and comfortable, as if they're from an old favorite album you'd put away and forgotten. The rest unfolds in similar fashion: Horns waxing poetically about the minutia of daily life, and his crack band following along with keys, drums, guitars and the occasional flourishes most are eager to overuse. From start to finish, this is a stellar set of songs that you'll be humming in the shower for years" - John Ross (Columbus Alive)



Critic's Pick: Paper Airplane (Columbus). With an incredibly sound grasp on classic Pop mastery, Paper Airplane is making some of the best Power Pop/Indie Pop in Ohio right now. While obviously schooled in the Beatles' school of resplendent melodies and song structures, their sound is anything but obvious. Hooks cascade throughout the incredibly crafty, wildly colorful songs that pervade Middlemarch, their ace 2007 release. Dig It: ELO, Beulah, Flaming Lips. - Mike Breen of Cincinnati's City Beat



• "Hola a todas, os recomiendo este disco, es muy bonito e intimista, con muy buenas melodías y arreglos, os puedo decir que me gusta mucho. Os pongo el enlace en cdbaby donde lo podréis escuchar. A quien le guste, lo tengo en el pájaro." (Power Pop Action!)



• "If you're looking for a gimmick, you won't find it here. This band doesn't dress in matching bolero ties, they don't wear Jared Leto levels of eyeliner, and they don't inundate utility poles with flashy posters before shows. Singer/songwriter Ryan Horns and his latest indie-pop quartet, Paper Airplane, aren't interested in what's trendy. They're far too busy creating eclectic, substantive music that speaks for itself" - Brooke Williams (Columbus Alive)



• "Paper Airplane succeed in taking music and creating audial poetry. That being said, it’s also damn fun. The CD’s title Middlemarch is shared with George Eliot’s 1871 book of the same name, a story that is considered one of history’s greatest novels. If Eliot’s closing passage were translated to the music of Paper Airplane, it would fit: “For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” Personally, I hope this CD stays neither hidden nor unvisited." - Dave Schaefer (Life on the C Bus)



• "The group.is writing and performing some of the best indie pop in Columbus. And that’s a good thing, considering the amount of bad indie pop that’s oozing from butt-hurt wannabe poets from the ‘burbs. Paper Airplane pounded the pavement in support of its first release, Middlemarch (2007), a collection of get-stuck-in-your-head pop gems that garnered well-deserved critical acclaim. Now the band is busy at work on its newest effort, White Elephants, on Columbus’s All Hail Records." Jon Theiss (The Other Paper)



• "They are thankfully one of those bands that doesn’t fit easily into one category. Instead, think of them as a fun and earnest rock band with a whole mess of heart. Prepare to fall in love with one of your new favorite bands." Scott Kirkpatrick (Backseat Sandbar)



LIST OF LINKS:

• Backseat Sandbar (Louisville)

• KCRW: Top Tune of the Day

• Life on the C-bus, review of "Middlemarch"

• The Wheel's Still in Spin, Better than Chili: Paper Airplane

• Columbus Alive, Year in Review. Easiest Record to Like Award

• Dayton Daily News

• Cringe.com

• CJAM - Middlemarch review

• 11/07 Columbus Alive article on All Hail Records

• C Magazine, 2008

• Cincinnati's City Beat, 2008 Midpoint Music Festival Critics Pick (scroll way down)

• Riot Act, Song of the day (scroll all the way down)