Aurora

Aurora – All My Demons Greeting Me As a Friend

Released 2016.03.11

I don’t know exactly when my first exposure with Aurora was, but I can say my exposure of actually becoming a fan, was through Sigrid. Which is kind of funny because I feel like it more often would go the other way. I don’t know that Sigrid and Aurora are “friends” exactly, but they have, I dunno, been in the same room together, and re both originally from Norway. Though Sigrid seems a bit more based in England, Aurora is decidedly Norwegian.

I’m sure overtime my music tastes will evolve again, but for the time being, Aurora is definitely my top pick for favorite artist. I can’t really articulate exactly why, but there is just something, quote magical and wonderful about every track she has done. Like, seriously, solidly, every track. Her musical style reminds me a lot of Björk or Enya.

I’m not here now to write about every track, though in time, probably, I will. I am here to talk about her first album, All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend, or, for my own sanity, simply All My Demons. Similar to the case with CHVRCHES, Aurora is an artist that I am sure I heard before becoming a fan, I just didn’t really put much into it. Her first album, is also my top most listened to album, at least, according to last.fm. I’ll be running through the Deluxe version of this album.

There is a lot of variety to have here, but all of them share a sort of, primal energy. Aurora incorporates a lot of traditional Norwegian sound and vocalizations along with modern electronic music and methods. It creates an incredibly powerful vehicle which Aurora uses to push her message. Oddly enough, while her message have a clear, “love everything and everyone” sort of motif, she has mentioned before that a lot of her songs are left to “personal interpretation” by the listener.

The album itself is up and down on it’s emotion and tones as well. Almost all of the tracks are underpinned by a sort of lingering sorrow, but other push it to the forefront. Some tracks like Runaway, Winter Bird, and Lucky, which are hopeful but sad. Others are much more sorrow and sadness, like Under the Water, I Went to Far, and of course, Murder Song. Murder Song is particularly interesting in it’s two versions, the less often heard album version has a much larger and forceful push to it, while the more commonly heard acoustic version bonus track is much much more low key.

But there is also plenty of emotion from the upbeat tracks, which are some of my favorites on the album. Warrior is the commonly known classic. Running with the Wolves is very full of primal energy and builds to a fantastic climax. Conqueror has a great beat and tune, though Aurora has mentions she dislikes the track. I don’t know, but I suspect because it has a bit of a, subservient theme, which feels like it pushes against her otherwise fully independent spirit personality.

Probably my favorite song on All My Demons… is Black Water Lilies. It feels a bit less complex than a lot of the other tracks on the album but I really like the running melodies and overall sort of, happy lyrics with a sad-ish sound it has throughout, though it’s mostly positive energy. It wasn’t a song that was initially my favorite, but its one that grew to be so after digging deeper into Aurora’s overall sound.

I can’t really say I can give an unbiased overall opinion here, but i can say it’s my favorite Aurora Album and it’s also one of my favorite, overall albums.

Linear Quotes: Aurora

Linear Quotes: Aurora by Ketil Mosnes

Just for establishment up front here, I am a big fan of the musician Aurora. If we’re measuring by Last.fm scrobbles, which I like to do, she has very rapidly become my top scrobbled artist, of all time. But a pretty large margin. I saw this book posted by someone in a fan group on Facebook and it seemed like a pretty interesting, and probably less known bit of Aurora memorabilia, almost no one in the group was aware of it as far as I could tell. It’s also tricky to find, I had to order it from a bookseller in Norway. The book itself was pretty inexpensive, the shipping pretty much tripled the price.

Which is kind of the main negative, unless you happen to be somewhere that you can just buy this little book, it’s very very light on content. I don’t regret the purchase, but I was surprised that the book is much small is size than expected and roughly half of it’s few pages are photographs. The book itself is about the size of a manga book or a DVD case.

The book itself was written by a person who was able to travel around with Aurora’s crew briefly, though they aren’t really officially part of the grew. It contains a half dozen or so short interview excerpts and a bunch of photos. I will say, most of the photos are ones that I had never seen before, which was nice. Probably a side effect of the book being a bit of a lesser known artifact. There is a nice mix of behind the scenes photos and a few actual concert photos. They are a bit small though, given the size of the book, but it’s not like they are going to be torn out and displayed or something either. The photos themselves are clumped together in section, as opposed to mixed in with the text that relates to them, which feels like a side effect of using slightly nicer paper for the photo pages.

The real meat is the short interview parts. These are excepts from Aurora’s touring during 2016-2017. The writer also at least seems to be on pretty good terms with Aurora and it helps to give some fresh direction to the questions asked. It’s also worth noting for anyone not familiar with Aurora, she is, truly, absolutely, a unique and interesting person. There are plenty of in person interviews around on Youtube for examples of her all around oddness. She genuinely works to see the good in everything and to be good to everyone. The interview is dotted with lots of interesting takes on various things, I won’t go into detail on it all because well, that’s kind of the point of reading the book, but it’s definitely amusing at times, while sad at others.

I guess a good way to summarize it is to say she wears her emotions and herself not just on her sleeve, but on her entire self. If you’re a fan of Aurora, it’s certainly worth a read, and it’s a neat little book. I certainly enjoyed it, despite how short it is.

On another side note, the descriptions on this book suggest that “Linear Quotes” is a series, but as near as I can tell, this is the only one. Which is a bit disappointing because I would actually like to read more books like this.

Aurora @ The Riviera feat SubUrban (2022.05.27)

It seems like my brief run (of 2) concerts where I was standing up front couldn’t last forever. I was close, but I was not right up front for the Aurora show. Not a massive deal, except I ended up behind this dude with poofy hair, so I couldn’t see half the stage half the time.

But I’m not really here to complain. I’m here to record things that I want to remember.

This would have been my 4th (proper) concert, but I opted to not go see Dodie back in February, due to COVID going nuts at the time. So far, there has been kind of an interesting progression. Each time I’ve gotten to the venue an hour or so before doors opened. For Sigrid and CHVRCHES in St Louis, I was maybe 15-20 people back from the front of the line. For Aurora I was around the block and behind the venue in a very long line. I’m not real sure Aurora is particularly more popular, especially than CHVRCHES, but more likely Chicago is just a different environment than St Louis.

It certain was different for parking too. Both venues in St Louis had parking lots available. For Chicago, I used an app called Spot Hero and had to walk a mile and a half or so to the venue. Plus, I got to park in the jankiest back alley spot under an El Train bridge. Fun times.

Anyway, the doors eventually open, everyone slowly files in, I end up maybe, 4 people back right up against the right side. I probably could have gone closer to the center but I kind of preferred the idea of having the side rail available because, less people around.

The opening act was Sub Urban. I don’t really know much about Sub Urban beyond, he did a single with Aurora called Paramour. Unlike the opening acts at the last two shows, I don’t see myself rushing out to listen to more Sub Urban. His music was interesting, and it wasn’t bad, but it just… wasn’t really my thing. I think the best way to describe it is sort of Emo Rock Rap, while Sub urban does this weird sort of spastic jerky dance. Like I said, it wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t personally super into it.

I was a bit disappointed that they did not perform Paramour live, or even at all. It was kind of the perfect opportunity. I figure the issue there amounts to a few factors. Either you get Aurora out early, which spoils things a bit. Or you have to drag out Paramour’s band gear out again, which isn’t feasible at all, because it’s a Paramour song.

Anyway, as usual, there was a short intermission while the stage is reset, and then the main show of Aurora starts.

The main thing I feel like mentioning, I enjoyed the show a lot more than expected. And I want to say this because I had doubts about the set list before the show. I enjoy the the newest album that the tour is promoting, The Gods We Can Touch, but it’s not my favorite. I was worried that would slightly sour my overall enjoyment, but it did not. I think part of it is that the songs are frankly, better live.

I also was a bit worried about the sound because recently Silja Sol, who has been doing backup vocals for Aurora for a long time, left the band for her own solo work. I was a bit worried that this may hurt the sound, because Silja and Aurora harmonize so well together.

This is a common thing I have found in general, across acts. Even for songs I really enjoy, the music is better live.

Anyway, the setlist.

  • The Forbidden Fruits of Eden (Recorded Intro) (TGWCT)
  • Heathens (TGWCT)
  • Runaway (All My Demons…)
  • Everything Matters (TGWCT)
  • Blood in the Wine (TGWCT)
  • Warrior (All My Demons…)
  • The Woman I Am (TGWCT)
  • A Temporary High (TGWCT)
  • A Dangerous Thing (TGWCT)
  • Infections of a Different Kind (Step 1)
  • The River (Step 2)
  • Cure for Me (TGWCT)
  • Queendom (Step 1)
  • The Seed (Step 2)
  • Running With the Wolves (All My Demons…)

Encore:

  • Giving In to the Love (TGWCT)
  • A Little Place Called the Moon (Recorded Outro) (TGWCT)

It’s a little thing, but I am really glad Exist for Love wasn’t on the list, because I kind of actively dislike that track in particular. Total tracks were 3 from All My Demons Greeted Me as a Friend, 2 each from Infections of a Different Kind and A Different Kind of Human and 8+2 from The Gods We Can Touch. Not a bad set list. I had been really hoping that somehow Gentle Earthquakes would make it to the set list as it’s my favorite track but it did not.

My personal highlights on this list are Heathens,, Warrior, The Woman I Am, Infections of a Different Kind, Cure For Me, Running With the Wolves, and Giving In to the Love. OK yeah, that’s like half the tracks, and I honestly love them all. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but Aurora is my top artist of all time, according to Last FM. And as my listening habits tend to be album based over singles, I’ve listened to all of her songs, a lot. I am not sure I could actually pick a favorite from the list, but it probably would be The Woman I Am or Infections of a Different Kind. The latter being particularly notable because it’s a song I don’t listen to a lot because it’s slower, I’m not always in the mood for the slower tracks, and it’s the last song on it’s album, so I don’t always get to it before I stop listening.

Anyway, I am super glad I got to have this experience. I’ve actually seen my top three most listened to (at least per Last-FM) Artists Live now, which is fun.

I’ve added a few photos to this post but a full gallery can be found here.