Aurora

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Linear Quotes: Aurora

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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.

Live Shows

Aurora @ The Riviera feat SubUrban (2022.05.27)

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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.

Listening Habits

My Music Listening Habits for 2020

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Yeah, those monthly updates were kind of bleh, so I dumped them. But I still want to do a yearly wrap up. Though overall there isn’t a lot that’s surprising to me about the yearly stats.

The year was dominated by most of the artists I would expect it to be dominated by. Sigrid, Tessa Violet, Aurora, CHVRCHES have 14 of my top 25 albums. This grid doesn’t even include a few additional Sigrid “Albums” of live tracks that don’t properly show up so they get filtered.

Anyway, a bit better breakdown…

I am actually surprised that Sigrid still topped the chart above Aurora. I’ve been listening to a TON of Aurora, and not just “recently” or something, like all year. Plus Sigrid hasn’t had anything new since November 2019, so I felt like I had been listening to her music less. I still had around 100 more scribbles on Sigrid than Aurora. Tessa Violet, I’m less surprised about. I’ll comment a bit more later, but Tessa Violet has kind of dominated my individual song listens, she just… has less songs.

CHVRCHES has been kind of slowly building up more and more in rotation, and I expect them to continue to come in pretty high going forward as well. Another sleeper to look out for next year will be Dodie, at number 13. She only has a handful of tracks, and I’ve only recently started listening to her, but I really like her music, and next year, she has her first full album coming out.

On the “falling” list, I’ve hardly been listening to Alice Merton and Kiesza lately. Nothing wrong with either, they just sort of, have fallen off the rotation. And despite both ranking high, Dua Lipa and Carly Rae Jepsen were never really in the rotation. I’m honestly not sure how either is so high.

There are also a few of my more mainstay artists making a showing. The Who, BT, Pink Floyd, Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morrisette, Taylor Swift. I’m a little sad that Raffaella only really had one new song recently. She was the opening act for Sigrid when I saw them in 2019 and I really like her music. She has put out one track, Bardot, and a collaboration track called On the Look Out, that may as well just be a Raffaella track.

My single top track for the year, is, without question, the “2020 Anthem” of Bored.

Granted, this track is older than 2020, but it got a music video in 2020, and it kind of just sort of… fits the feel.

Half of my top ten were Tessa Violet tracks, so like I said, she kind of dominated on an individual track list. Everything else is about as expected, though I would have thought more Aurora tracks would have made the cut for that top 20.

Anyway, if you want, you can always just follow me on Last.fm.

Listening Habits

My Music Listening Habits for April 2020

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Well, it finally happened.

After a very long, very strong, 9 month reign as Queen, Sigrid has been dethroned from my top artist for the month. And by a rather huge margin. Funny enough, she has been dethroned by someone she knows, who is also a Norwegian singer, AURORA. It was a one-two punch though, because Sigrid has dropped to number three, not number two, with Tessa Violet sliding in at number two.

I can’t honestly blame the VierLive show entirely for Aurora’s rise here, she has been on sort of a slow bubble for a while now in my listening patterns. It certainly likely helped things along however. I would point to Tessa Violet and say she wasn’t helped by any live shows, but well, that wouldn’t be true. I have not watched all of them but she has been doing two weekly Youtube shows on Youtube. Though those are quite a bit … less structured.

Moving on a bit, Dua Lipa had a new album drop, Future Nostalgia, which is has a pretty nice sort of old school syth-pop feel going on with it. BT has been getting a bit of a resurgence lately, though it’s mostly just listening to These Humble/Hopeful/Whatever Machines again a bit. I can never remember which is which on those albums.

The rest of the top ten isn’t anything particularly exciting or new. The 5×5 is kind of all over the place as well, since I’ve been listening to a lot of random techno music lately so there’s a lot of kooky random stuff on there. The weird thing is, I don’t thing BT is on it either at all, despite being number 4 for the month.

Here is the 5×5 though, for the sake of consistency.

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