It’s not really all that hard at all to explain the appeal of Aurora. Aside from the obvious musical excellence, she’s someone with a personality you just can’t help but feel captivated by. Especially in interviews, when she comes across like some kind of intergalactic presence with a line of thinking that you can’t help but feel delighted and charmed by.
But it works because there’s also that contradictory element there that most experimental or art-pop musicians have, the kind that’s intricate and disarming but off-kilter and unique in the best way. It’s the same kind of energy that’s entirely authentic because it’s a little amusing but deeply thought-provoking, like hearing something you wouldn’t expect someone to say, only to challenge yourself as to why later.
This energy factors into her music, in the ways the coasts that delicate line between what people expect and what’s regarded as daring or taboo, delivered with a masterful edge that only someone who truly understands the sociopolitical nature of culture and music’s ability to both challenge that and reflect it can deliver. But it’s also the kind of highly intellectual art that not only makes you stop and think, but the kind that actually makes you consider changing your own behaviour.
And all of this comes from a place of complete and utter defiance. “People are so afraid of being political, especially in pop music,” Aurora once told Gay Times. “And that’s why I want to make good, intellectual, emotional pop music that can reach out to people and speak about something important, and remind us of something other than all this stuff we don’t really care about.”
But someone with a keen eye for musical greatness from such a young age is also hard to imagine as someone with their own influences, even though it’s often easy to pick out the ones that shaped and continue to shape her vision. One of the more obvious is the maestro of the contemporary experimental, avant-garde movement herself, Björk. Praising her album Homogenic in particular, Aurora recalled the moment it all clicked into place.
“Björk is a wonderful creator,” she told WFUV. “And this is one of my favourite albums by her. I discovered her quite late, compared to what a phenomenon she is. And when I heard this album, I understood why the world loves her. And now I do too.” It’s not hard to imagine Aurora falling in love with Biophilia, either, considering her artistic focus on nature and environmental causes. But Homogenic is as good a place as any to start.
The first album she ever bought and the first album she ever loved also say a lot about her as an artist, considering the former is Gojira’s L’Enfant sauvage and the latter is The Chemical Brothers’ Hanna. While she called The Chemical Brothers “my favourite musical producers”, she grew a particularly visceral connection to Gojira’s record, and not just because it was the first one she bought for herself. “It sounds like a mountain,” she said. “It’s very large. And I like that a lot.”
Another with a sort of expansive, existential appeal is Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar soundtrack, which she said she finds comfort in because “it suits my existential mind”. This almost reflects in her love for Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Arrival, which also factors into a specific experience, or the idea of said experience, one which only grew stronger after he passed: “The world has truly lost a beautiful soul,” she said. “Jóhann Jóhannsson was a beautiful creator. And this album feels like being born.”
