No Geography by The Chemical Brothers won the Grammy for the ‘best dance/electronic music album this year. One of the artists contributing directly to the success of this record is Aurora Aksens, a 23 year-old artist from Norway. She is featured on three tracks of No Geography. Her presence cannot go unnoticed. It’s difficult to ignore her. She has a strong voice and a special pitch. Also, her eyes are blue and her hair is white. She is the embodiment of the Snow Queen.
She started doing music following a common experience. She performed in a ceremony organized by her high-school, she was recorded by a classmate who uploaded the video on the internet, and that was it. She was contacted by a management agency in Norway and she got down to business. Her first album was released when she was 19, by Decca Records.
The label was impressed by her talent. You should also be impressed and definitely go check her out at Electric Castle 8. This way you’ll get to see that she’s real and not just a fairy tale character. You can’t know it until you see her perform on stage. But here are a few things about her:
She grew up in a remote Norwegian region
Her obsession with nature, so obvious in her tracks, has its roots in her childhood spent in a less populated region in Southern Norway. She grew up in Hole and then she moved to a town surrounded by the woods of the Os Mountains. Her entire time spent in nature has affected her personality too, not just her music. For instance, when she was visited by Tom Rowlands, one of the founders of The Chemical Brothers, she went for a walk and for five hours she couldn’t find the way out of the forest. It may have been the carelessness of her age or maybe she was looking for a lost treasure, who knows? Let’s hope she won’t get lost in the small forest near Bonțida.
She was compared with Björk
Aurora has a special pitch and a mystical aura. This determined some of the journalists to compare her with Björk. Granted, the Icelandic artist’s voice is truly one of a kind in human history, so even though the comparison is a bit exaggerated, if you listen to one of Aurora’s songs, you’ll get why some people should say that. Plus, Björk has a track called Aurora. It’s on the 2001 album Vespertine. Coincidence? Yes.
She’s fascinated by artists such as Leonard Cohen, Enya and Mastodon
You can sense Enya in her music. You can even sense Leonard Cohen or Wintergatan, a Swedish folktronic project. Aurora has declared her love for all these artists. The selection is predictable so far. It may be harder to believe that she is also into heavy metal. Yes, she’s from Norway, a country known for black and death metal bands, but you wouldn’t expect her to headbang to a Mastodon song. Oh well, in an interview for NPR, Aurora admitted she liked the American band and that she’s been to three of their concerts so far. You do realize that this is the chick who appeared on the Frozen II soundtrack we’re talking about, right?
Her music fills you with positive energy
Aurora wants you to feel strong when you listen to her music. She declared in an interview with Small Sessions that her audience should feel ready to fight and take on any challenges, as if they were confronted with a ”positive fight”. It’s hard to explain what she means, but it’s very easy to understand once you hit the play button. And even easier to understand if you see her in a live concert.
