Dylan Longworth has a particularly special place in the AuraLink canon. You see, long before AuraLink was even conceptualized I previously wrote for a blog called Itasca, and during my brief time there I wrote about a handful of artists including Sneaker Kids, han.irl, and notably Dylan Longworth. In fact, the very first song I ever wrote an article about was aerofoil. At the time I had signed on to write for Itasca kind of on a whim with zero writing experience outside of school work, but just for the hell of it I thought maybe writing could be fun, and aerofoil was my testing ground. Now, fast forward to the end of 2025, and I’m still a music writer (granted with a huge break in the middle) and Dylan Longworth has a new album, and yet there’s a familiar friend on there.

North Carolina artist Dylan Longworth writes about overcoming vulnerabilities on his track aerofoil.  With a balance of acoustic and lo-fi trap-oriented sounds, Dylan paints an incredibly vivid picture of accepting his own shortcomings and preparing to grow beyond them. 

A quote from my original Itasca article

complete metamorphosis is a title that feels quite literal to this project. Half of the tracks aren’t new, simply having new mixes bringing them more in line with Dylan’s current direction. While a traditionally odd decision, it’s one that let’s Dylan bring us through his whole journey, from beginning till present. I wrote in my original article that Dylan “has built his whole sound on the much more serious challenge of conveying his genuine feelings of love, loss, sadness, and growing up”, and that is thematic consistency that has not changed in the 4 years since I wrote those words. From tracks like vlinder and it’s raw emotional peak into a mental cage, to the upbeat aggression and cockiness of royaltii, the project is as varied and complex as the very mind of the creative who pieced it together.

For the section where I pick apart a track or two in far too much detail to really be palatable to the general reader, we’re gonna look at the album opener end of the world which welcomes us to the project with some simple but gorgeous pop-trap. Dylan’s longingly belted vocals are layered here with lightly chopped synths and a simple 808 bass and drum combo. While beats like this are often unappealing to me, there’s something about the way this song balances it’s small details that really elevates it. The intro is full of bountiful blips and bloops pulsing in and out, leaving the heavy lifting to Dylan’s voice while they simply set the atmosphere. If you’ll allow me to get a little abstract, to me it feels like painting a picture of a sky full of stars just to convey the scenery in which Dylan shouts into. It’s a bit floaty, it twinkles with short bursts of light, and through the gaps we’re gifted Dylan’s lament for the end of the world.

Skipping forward past the literal entirety of this album to the outro (not because it’s bad but because its got vocoder and I love vocoder), aphotic is a song with nothing but gorgeous vocoded chords (nothing could have possible foreshadowed that). I’m personally a huge proponent of the idea that vocoder is a heavily under utilized tool in modern music, and aphotic demonstrates exactly why. Without the distraction of a backing instrumental, our focus is brought in it’s entirety to Dylan’s words, and his despair for a relationship kept past best. It’s beautiful, and the moment where he hits the high note is the perfect final climax for an album with the emotional intelligence that this one has. Not everyone can pull off such a bare bones instrumental, because it really does require you to command the audience through your performance, but Dylan perfectly walks the line between delicate and powerful to bring us an album closer that truly cuts deep.

complete metamorphosis leans into a lot of acoustic influences, which despite the top song of Dylan’s catalog being the incredibly hyperpop-y amoranasia, is a sound I think really suits Dylan. It’s authentic and raw, and feels incredibly natural with the way he blends the acoustic elements with his production background. Unfortunately for this article I must confess that despite being a theory trained musician and former music major, I live in such a bubble that I’m not actually well practiced at writing about music with this kind of feel. I spend so often talking about thick synth chords and granular processing that I seem to struggle conveying just how wonderful this album is within it’s comparative simplicity. With that said, the one advantage to me not over explaining the whole thing is you (the reader) get to really go and experience it for the first time with very little prior expectations, and a first listen is truly a special thing. So to end it off I simply want to congratulate Dylan on this milestone on his journey, and thank him for the opportunity to christen AuraLink in a full circle moment by giving me the opportunity to write about the same song again 4 years from where it all began. That’s just quality journalism baby.

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Small addendum: I did not find a way to nicely work it into the article, but this album has truly gorgeous art direction. I think (but am not sure) that dylan does his own art and I love the little doodles over the sky, and the diagram of a butterfly’s metamorphosis cycle. It’s such a small thing but I really love it and just wanted to mention it in some capacity 🙂