Foto-© Universal Music
Mit Aurora sprachen wir kürzlich erst (hier nachzulesen). Nun da ihr Album The God We Can Touch das Licht der Welt erblickt hat, ergriffen wir die Chance uns noch einmal mit ihr auszutauschen. Die Frau weiß mit ihrer Liebenswürdigkeit zu verzaubern und doch dafür zu sorgen ihre Botschaft zu vermitteln und zum Denken anzuregen. Ihre charismatische Art ist einfach wunderbar ansteckend, ihre Musik macht Spaß und stimmt doch nachdenklich und irgendwie ist es kein Wunder, dass sie (trotz modernem Pop) sowohl Jung als auch Alt in ihren Bann zieht!
Aurora, hello again. This is fun – it hasn’t been too long since we last spoke. How are you doing?
I know! It’s nice to see you, it’s not often that you see the same people again in these things. I’m feeling very good. I’m currently in Paris and it’s a lovely day.
That sounds wonderful. Last time I asked you what colour you would give your music. A bottle green, you said, would describe Cure For Me. But you didn’t want to give away a colour for the album. So.. what shade are you thinking?
Well, it’s definitely red and gold. And it’s kind of black as well. I think black can be a very deep and warm colour and misleading too.
In what way?
In movies, the bad people have the white robes. You think they’re good first, because everything is white; and then they always turn out to be the evil ones. In sci-fi movies, everything is clean and sterile, there’s always something fishy going on. It’s not right, it just feels off, so white is just too much. I feel like dark is inviting and black contains all the colours, so it’s a bit sneaky of me.
Cheeky! What is your journey with greek mythology? Where does your fascination for greek gods & goddesses stem from and what intrigues you about then?
It started with a fascination for religion and history. I find faith very interesting and I find faith in itself makes a lot of sense, because it’s a huge part of our quest here on earth. To search and to learn and to wonder and all of those things. But when I looked through the systematic religions throughout time, it just made me very curious why we started with having gods so close, in our reach, on the earth, in the trees, in the water. In the ancient times god was all around here, we could see god everywhere and touch god. And then with time we made god less and less approachable. Now we put god up in the sky, far away, and removed him from earth. I just wondered why and then stopped at greek mythology, because I found it extremely interesting that they had, of course flaws, but a beautiful way of combining the human and the divine and making them feel like the same thing. A man can be a god and a man and a woman can be a goddess and a woman at the same time. And they celebrate all the things that they put shame upon in our more modern religion. Being a woman was never a bad thing, or being gay or being trans, drinking wine or beer, the sexual. There was no fuss about being a virgin. I resonate the most, out of all the religions, with greek mythology.
That sounds so beautiful and like such a special inspiration behind an album. To bring that back to us and make us realise that actually it doesn’t help anyone if you strive for perfection. And not even gods are perfect, even if you want them to be.
How or what are you feeling when you listen to The Gods We Can Touch yourself?
Well I’ve only listened to it twice. Once when I had to master the album after the mixing and then once the morning it was released. I prefer not to listen to my own music too much. I felt relieved and like a post birth kind of emotion and happiness. And I was struck again by how wild it is. It’s very chaotic and very genre blending and it’s way more over the place when I tried to listen to it from the outside. When I was in it I felt like it all makes sense. To me it all just perfectly sounds like this album, like an own genre. But I did realise how all over the place it is and that was interesting.
Are you rediscovering it in a different way when you listen to it and when you play it live?
I guess I kind of do. Listening to it is very different when you realise that you can’t touch it or change it. So you have to listen to it while just accepting that it is just what it is now forever until after a die. This huge thing is eternal almost. You listen to it with more acceptance once it’s released. It’s very easy to enjoy something if you have to accept it for just what it is; then everything is very lovable.
Wise words that we can take to many parts of the human existence. Noted, thanks very much.. After sharing music online for so long, playing virtual concerts too, can you believe you get to go on a real tour so soon?
It’s going to be so strange. But I’m excited, because I think what is magical about music is that it can unite people with completely different personalities and needs and beliefs and political views. It’s so uniting and magical and everyone understands it, even children who don’t even know why they like it. They just understand it. And I never get more reminded of this magic than when I perform and when I see it happening right there in the face of the people in front of me. It’s just the most beautiful thing. People look so beautiful when they forget to analyse themselves. It’s just so pretty and oh it’s so easy to fall in love with mankind watching them like that.
That sounds so wonderful. And you give them a reason to float and forget their critical heady things. One thing I noticed and found so special is that you seem to have young audiences from TikTok but also the middle aged generation who you draw in. You seem to be sharing something that resonates with so many.
It’s very interesting. It creates a very lovely dynamic, especially on my shows. You notice all the different vibrations, all kind of different behaviours, and I really enjoy that. It’s really fascinating and you can from stage almost see the pattern of the different groups of people. They behave kind of the same but also differently. I’m very happy my music has no age because there are many things with all people of all ages that I resonate with. I’m happy to meet all of the people. The meeting with people is a special thing and they remind me of things that I forget sometimes and I remind them of something they forget. They can offer me so much and it’s very very pleasing, emotionally and intellectually and spiritually.
The video for A Temporary High you just shared with the world a few hours ago. What a magical masterpiece! Can you share some tales of its creation?
I wanted to symbolise the feeling of chaos. Everything means something, from the number and the colours and the positions of people. Some fans have already discovered a few things that connect with things I’ve done before. I wanted to represent the chaos and the conundrum between trying to make the chaos make sense, while trying to make sense out of yourself. And then figuring out what direction you should go with the people, against the people or just to stand still and watch everyone else. It’s this making sense of the chaos and making sense of yourself at the same time and how confusing and overwhelming that can be for a human being.
When I listened to the album for the first time, I tried to listen in one go. But I felt so moved by Everything Matters that I couldn’t help pressing repeat many times. Can you share what the song represents for you?
I love the song too, I think it’s one of my favourites from the album as well. It’s really close to my heart. I wrote it a long time ago, quite early in the process and I already knew with that song that it was a part of the vibration that I wanted the album to be. To me it’s about – which is an important keyword for me, because it can be about something different for everyone -, but it’s about two things. If you listen very carefully, it’s a beautiful and a sad story. There’s something ominous about it also. But also something extremely beautiful. It’s about these people, the you and the me in the song, and they are going thought something which forces them to think about life differently and they look at each other and they look around themselves and they just grasp that time is slipping out of their fingers too quickly. I look at everything and am imagining in the and of the song they drive this car out to a sunset and they watch one very last sunset together and… there’s a fear that you miss out on all the beautiful things. There is so much beauty in this world, the small things as well.
And how did the collaboration with Pomme come about?
I recorded the whole album in this castle and it has French history and I thought I should give an extra vow to this location and castle that have inspired me. The French baron who lived there hundreds of years ago loved art and often invited artists to create and share and display and entertain in the castle. So basically I’m just one of his guests, but only a few hundred years after he died. But I felt like in spirit he would loved that I was there and I feel like a guest long after. Even though he’s dead and gone from being alive, it’s still important to honour people. And I wanted to include something French for him, so he would understand in case he didn’t know english. So I asked Pomme to write the ending for me and she did it beautifully and the lyrics are gorgeous and I’m extremely happy that I asked her. Now she’s my new friend as well.
What a great story! Is this something you’d like to do more in the future? Collaborating?
I think I want to do more with Pomme actually, something French with her help. I’m very fascinated by languages.. And I want to work more with The Chemical Brothers, cause I love their music. And I want to work with some heavy metal bands. And just people, people around the world doing the beautiful things they do. Be inspired by cultures and learning about music around the world. I have a lot of people I want to collaborate with, but I’m naturally more drawn to just the people who haven’t been found yet I guess.
Well that sounds very intriguing! You often mention human’s obsession with beauty. And I wonder what you think the way out is, and a way back to a peaceful acceptance?
I find it extremely troubling. It’s like a mental illness that we all have or a defect. It’s more like a defect that just really doesn’t make sense, you know? It prevents people from enjoying their lives, the one life we have. Because they spend the first half hating themselves and the second half regretting hating themselves and wishing they could see how beautiful they were, now that they don’t feel beautiful anymore. It’s just horrible.. I think we should remove ourselves from the internet more. I think people should be more open with admitting that when you have money and you can do these small things that look gorgeous and flawless. It will help the conversation if people were more honest with when it’s more about money than how you are naturally. Not that that makes any difference, but it makes a difference for the people at home wondering why they aren’t naturally ageing as gracefully or looking the same. I think it would at least help if that was a more open thing. It’s note shameful if you can afford it and you can do what you want. It’s a choice and it’s where we shame our own naturalness by comparing it to something that isn’t all natural. It’s still beautiful, but it’s about the comparing that scares me. I hope that we worship ourselves more and each other, than celebrities for their beauty. Because it doesn’t do good to anyone, not even the celebrities.
It’s nearly similar to the conversation we just had about gods and goddesses. That we put these internet people into a spot of unreachable perfection.
I think so. And I think in our really modern times, for most of us, we can kind of point out in the world who we look up upon like gods that we can’t touch. It’s very scary I think. We tend to indulge in unhealthy patterns, don’t we? Unhealthy for someone or for everyone. But I hope we find a good path because we all deserve that.
Aurora live:
21.06.22 Tempodrom, Berlin
