I walked into Variety Coffee on the hunt for a face I hadn’t seen in at least five years, unsure if it’d register as familiar or not. Luckily for me, Collapser was easy to spot, sitting effectively center stage in a leather jacket and black sunglasses—hardly appropriate for the 20-something degree weather outside, save for a cozy wool scarf. I approached with uncertainty, painfully aware of how notoriously bad I am at remembering faces, before being met with the confirmatory relief of a warm hug. 

Aaron Avidon, the man behind Collapser, was an old friend from college—if you could call “person you occasionally run into at parties” a friend. Prior to this day in Bushwick, I couldn’t recall us ever having an IRL conversation that lasted more than five minutes, particularly not one that wasn’t set to the backing track of overpowering house music, toeing that fine line of screaming at a person and attempting to speak loudly enough so as to be just barely audible. Despite our moderate estrangement, Aaron graciously accepted my request to meet up for an interview to discuss his musical project Collapser.

I found out about Collapser in the way that many 21st-century discoveries are made: via Instagram. Aaron’s post about the release of the second Collapser single “needles” in November 2025 spurred my outreach by direct message, which subsequently turned into a collaborative brainstorm session. Aaron had been in the general sphere of The Dilettante since early in its lifespan; there is a photo from 2019 of Aaron, in a Hawaiian shirt, and myself, dressed as Chucky with a faux bloody face, at the Halloween release party of Edition 2. Given our orbital past, he seemed like an obvious choice to feature in the current issue.

The desire to explore other artists’ creative processes had been simmering in my mind for some time and, in keeping with the Dilettante spirit, I was particularly interested in highlighting amateur artists whose approach to their work was guided by passion over professionalist pathways. Similar to “dilettante,” the word “amateur” has taken on a pejorative meaning in our contemporary hyper-productive, pro-capitalist hustle culture, condemning the amateur identity for a perceived lack of competence. While some mistakenly use the “amateur” to mean a beginner, to be an amateur has more to do with the relationship with one’s craft than one’s level of experience. Historically, “amateur” originates from the French word amateur (meaning “lover of”), which is itself derived from the Latin amator (“lover”). To be an amateur is to be a devotee, compelled by passion and enthusiasm rather than financial gain. 

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Aaron’s introduction to music as a creative outlet began as a teenager, when he was “as mentally unwell as a 14-year-old can be.” His mom got him a Fender Stratocaster, sagely telling him, “You can’t just sit here and be miserable,” and enrolling him in guitar lessons. As he entered high school, he developed other creative interests and embraced the world of theater and musical theater. While in college at Tulane University, Aaron pursued his love for radio, eventually growing to be the general manager at WTUL New Orleans, Tulane’s student-run radio station. 

Throughout his adolescence and into adulthood, Aaron maintained a love for music but found himself constantly “checking ambition,” telling himself that he could appreciate music but couldn’t make it himself. The extent to which he allowed himself to engage with music was in writing about it, doing an album review or artist profile. After graduating college, he pursued a career in the music industry—not making music, but working for musicians. Then, last year, Aaron found himself in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, realizing: “I need to pursue a creative outlet, or I’m going to implode.” He tried drawing, then writing, then decided to draw upon the remnant knowledge of college music production classes to begin writing and creating his own music, developing and honing a new skillset along the way.

Aaron’s creative process is by nature iterative and endlessly refining. Under the project name Rabbit House, he first produced a collection of demos before scrapping them because, in his words, “This feels cool, but these are all fragments of ideas that I don’t really see going anywhere, so I’m just going to keep building.” For some time after that, the project was conceived of as Locust Valley, named after a town on Long Island where his grandparents used to live. Locust Valley was imagined as an ambient soundscape project, inspired by ‘90s PlayStation 2 horror games like Silent Hill. Then, Aaron decided that he wanted to play guitar and sing and write lyrics, sonically blending emo with ‘90s shoegaze with electronic elements and pop punk and anime opener music—an effort to transmute a wide variety of childhood (and current) joys to one cohesive project. And thus, Collapser was born.

The pseudonym Collapser originated in an interwoven mess of inspiration, as the best ideas often are: Nine Inch Nails’ “Ruiner,” Disintegration by The Cure, the deterioration of the American belief system, and the general notion of decay. Living in Brooklyn, Aaron frequently passed by abandoned buildings and warehouses, making mental note of the destruction of old lots to make room for new condominiums and luxury apartments, an endless cycle of man-made structures created and destroyed in a process of perpetual evolution. Drawing upon a lifelong fascination with world-building, Aaron imagined a character to counter King Midas; instead of a gold touch, what if there were a supernatural being whose touch caused things to disintegrate? To collapse? 

First conceived of as a project to simply house a batch of songs, Collapser quickly developed into a character that Aaron himself embodied. Complete with shimmering red eyeshadow and life-sized angel wings, the Collapser character is aesthetically and conceptually inspired by Wim Wenders’ 1983 film Wings of Desire, which tells the story of angels in Berlin who observe and listen to the thoughts of the city’s human inhabitants. 

Collapser’s debut album, Somebody’s Heaven, is a coming-of-age story loosely based on Aaron’s experience as a 27-year-old music industry professional who wants to be an artist. Shaped by his love of concept records—drawing inspiration from artists like Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo, who Aaron hails as “one of the best modern musicians doing concept albums”—Somebody’s Heaven paints an alternate reality in which an alien crash-lands in Brooklyn and meets an aspiring artist, exploring the unlikely relationship that unfolds as the alien works to understand humanity. Aaron also sees his love for anime reflected in his narrative vision, citing Chainsaw Man and FLCL as highly influential to the Somebody’s Heaven concept: “I’m a huge fucking weeb, so I can talk about all the different anime that are influential to me in regards to the zaniness and the visuals and the music and the characters and the goals.” Through the writing and recording process, what was originally envisioned as a six-song EP has taken on a life of its own and grown into a full-length album. 

At its core, Aaron’s approach to art is an effort to shout through the void and substantiate his existence. “Life and the greater scope of the world can feel so oppressive at times,” says Aaron. In contrast, art offers the ability to create a world based in magical realism, to move beyond the mundane realities of adulthood and attune to his inner child, fulfilling the desire to be more than just the body he inhibits. While he is, in part, creating to tell a story, he also creates to discover how his various influences inform a deeper understanding of self as he moves through life. Collapser is as much a process of storytelling for others as it is a process of learning for Aaron himself.

Read the full piece in Issue 7 of The Dilettante.

Somebody’s Heaven is tentatively slated for release in Summer/Fall 2026. You can follow Collapser on Instagram at @collapser.bk.