CMU Approved

Approved: Aurora

By | Published on Thursday 5 March 2015

Aurora

Aurora has released three singles over the course of the last year, each showcasing a well-formed folk-inflected pop style, starting with ‘Awakening’ last March before leaving us hanging until November and the soaring ‘Under Stars’. Last month came ‘Runaway’, her first single of the year and a real step up in the movement towards her debut album.

Very much tipped for success in the US, where she’s signed to Glassnote (also Stateside home to fellow Europeans Mumford & Sons and Chvrches), she yesterday picked up a Twitter endorsement from Katy Perry. Asked about how all this attention felt before she’d even released her second single last year, she told Pigeons & Planes: “It’s like swimming in a very good soup. Almost drowning, kind of, in the middle of everything – but at least the soup is good”.

I’m not exactly sure what the soup represents there, but let’s just pretend I made a really great segue back into talking about ‘Runaway’ from that comment. ‘Runaway’ is the most striking of Aurora’s songs to date. The atmospheric setting it places itself in musically gives space for her gentle voice to really come to the fore. Like all three of her songs, it feels like very visual songwriting, evoking strong images in its music and lyrics. Which means it’s almost a shame that ‘Runaway’ is the first of her songs to be given a video.

Those of you at by:Larm in Norway can catch Aurora live on home ground at Sentrum Scene tomorrow night at 9pm. Everyone else will have to make do with the video for ‘Runaway’ (which isn’t such a bad thing really):



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