AURORA

AURORA
Information
Birth Name	Aurora Aksnes
Born	June 15, 1996 (age 27) Stavanger, Norway
Origin	Bergen, Vestland, Norway Os, Hordaland, Norway (upbringing) Sandnes, Rogaland, Norway (upbringing)
Family	May Britt Aksnes (mother) Jan Øystein Aksnes (father) Viktoria Aksnes (sister) Miranda Aksnes (sister)
Genres	Alternative Electropop Indie pop
Occupation(s)	Singer Songwriter Producer Director
Instruments	Vocals Piano Harp Percussion Drums Bass
Labels	Decca Records Glassnote Records Petroleum Records
Website	aurora-music.com

Aurora Aksnes (born June 15, 1996), known mononymously as Aurora (stylized in uppercase), is a Norwegian singer-songwriter and producer. Her debut extended play Running with the Wolves was released through Decca Records, Glassnote and Petroleum Records in May 2015, receiving widespread approval from online music blogs and national press. Her debut studio album All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend was released on March 11, 2016. In 2018, she released her second album / EP, Infections of a Different Kind - Step 1, followed by her third studio album, A Different Kind of Human - Step 2 in 2019. Her fourth studio album, The Gods We Can Touch, was released on January 21, 2022.

Early life

Aurora Aksnes was born in the Stavanger University Hospital in Stavanger, Norway, on 15 June 1996. She spent her first three years in Høle (Sandnes), a small town where her parents, May Britt Aksnes (née Froastad) and Jan Øystein Aksnes, had lived for 15 years. In her house in Høle, Aurora developed a taste for nature, singing, and traditional clothing, such as long skirts and hats. Later the family moved further north in western Norway, to a house in the woodlands of the Os (now Bjørnafjorden) mountains, a remote municipality in Hordaland (now Vestland) close to Bergen, where she grew up. Aurora has described this place as "There are almost no cars, and the roads are small and bumpy, and there are lots of trees everywhere; it's very quiet, and the internet is bad." She has also compared it to the fictional land of Narnia. She has two older sisters, Miranda, a make-up artist, and Viktoria, a fashion designer.

Aurora is the only musician in her family. She started learning to play piano when she was six. "I really love classic music, and when I found this piano in the attic, I just started pressing the keys and trying to figure out my favorite classical songs. I started to make melodies that I recognized. There was something special about being able to play just by yourself – something about the emotion in it made me want to continue playing." She began creating melodies at the age of six and also wrote some lyrics and poetry in Norwegian. She started writing lyrics in English at age nine when she had some knowledge of the language. Songs such as "I Went Too Far" and "Runaway" were written in this early stage of her life. Besides classical music, she has mentioned she was influenced by artists like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Enya, as well as The Chemical Brothers and melodic metal.

Career

2012-2016: First years and All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend

Aurora has frequently stated that it was not her plan to become a musician, she thought she might go on to study molecular biology or physics. One of the first times Aurora played her own music for an audience was at an event on her school. She played "I Had a Dream", a song addressing how harsh the world can be.

After a studio recording of her song "Puppet" was posted online in December 2012, it was picked up in a national chart. An artist manager heard the song, contacted Aurora and asked if she was interested in pursuing a career in music. She was hesitant at first and briefly considered to be a songwriter for other artists, but eventually decided to make it on her own as a recording artist, teaming up with Made Management.

Her second release, "Awakening", initially also had a limited distribution in 2013 but gained her her first broader audience and some airplay on national radio. When she was booked for a festival, a live band was formed on January 16, 2014. After this show at by:Larm, the press wrote praising reviews. Word spread and more interest for her music soon followed, also internationally. Aksnes was still in school at this point, after careful consideration she quit on day two of her third grade in upper secondary school (2014) to focus on her music.

After signing to Petroleum Records earlier that year, she joined two more, Decca Records and Glassnote Records, in September and changed her stage name from Aurora Aksnes to AURORA. "Under Stars", the first single under her new labels and name, was released in November 2014, and "Runaway" followed in February 2015. "Runaway" achieved success on streaming service Spotify, reaching one million streams after just six weeks. Aurora's first official music video was recorded for this song. Her next single, "Running with the Wolves", was released in April 2015, a title track for her debut EP Running with the Wolves, which followed shortly after. Aurora's sixth single, "Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1)", was released in September 2015 and she received continued support from the press. Well on her way as a recording artist, Aurora was now a sought-after live performer. Recording a cover of Oasis' "Half the World Away" for a high-profile UK Christmas advert in 2015 gained her even more recognition there.

Starting 2016, Aurora released her singles "Conqueror" and "Warrior" in the lead-up to her debut album release All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend was eventually released on March 11, 2016, receiving generally positive reviews from critics. After releasing it, she embarked on another very busy worldwide tour. Aurora also featured in Icarus' song "Home" and released her cover of David Bowie's "Life on Mars". On March 14, 2016, Aurora made her American television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon performing "Conqueror", that year she also performed on Conan, The Howard Stern Show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, increasing her exposure to USA audiences.

2016–2018: Infections of a Different Kind - Step 1

On the day of releasing her debut All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend, she said that it was "the first album of many" that she had planned. As of 12 May 2016, after coming back from her European tour, Aurora announced that she was ready to begin writing and producing more material, which would eventually form her second studio album. She said in a Facebook event that she had 15 demo songs and had written 1,000 songs/poems. According to Aurora, her second studio album was expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Between April and August 2018, the singer released two singles, "Queendom" and "Forgotten Love", which would be included on her next release. Aksnes recorded most of the album during her stay in France in January of that year. The production included producers Askjell Solstrand, Roy Kerr, and Tim Bran, as well as Aurora herself. While she had rarely been credited as producer before, she has noted that she had been involved in the production of many of her songs.

Some of the newly recorded songs were played in live performances before release, including on festivals like Lollapalooza and Coachella.

While maintaining some of the themes and stories of the previous record, this production would mark the first time that Aksnes includes political themes and themes of sexuality in her songs. Most of the new inspiration for those came from the interaction that she had with her fans during her first musical tour. The music video for "Queendom" saw its release in May 2018, and it included a message to her LGBT fans; such message was portrayed by Aksnes herself kissing one of her female dancers, during what was described as a "big kissing party" that shows that "every type of love is accepted and embraced" in the singer's queendom.

On June 13, 2018, a cover of the song "Baby Mine" by Aurora was featured in the teaser trailer for Disney's live-action Dumbo remake. The song would continue to be showcased in the following trailers for the film, but would not be included on the movie's soundtrack release.

On September 28, 2018, Aurora surprise-released her second record, Infections of a Different Kind - Step 1. The album features eight tracks and the title itself comes from the eighth track included on it, a song Aurora declared as "the most important song I've ever written". Shortly after the release, the singer went on tour starting in Manchester, UK and supported by Cub Sport.

2019–2020: A Different Kind of Human - Step 2

In the months leading up to the release of her third album, Aurora released four of its tracks. Snippets of the song "Animal" were released between January 21 and 24 of 2019, before the full track was finally released on January 24, 2019. Following it were the songs "The Seed", "The River" and "A Different Kind of Human", released on April 5, May 10 and May 31, respectively. When she was promoting the new album in Australia three weeks before its release, she covered The Beatles' "Across the Universe" for the radio program Triple J, along with a live performance of "The Seed". Aurora's third studio album, A Different Kind of Human - Step 2, was released on June 7, 2019, and features eleven tracks.

Aurora contributed to three tracks on The Chemical Brothers' ninth studio album, No Geography, released on April 12, 2019. The tracks are "Eve of Destruction", "Bango", and "The Universe Sent Me".

On June 11, 2019, the trailer for Disney's Frozen II was released, and some fans noticed that the vocals in the background sounded very similar to Aurora's. Aurora then confirmed on her Twitter and Instagram accounts that it was indeed her. On September 30, 2019, the film's official track listing was revealed, confirming she was on the project. Her vocals are featured in the film's theme song "Into the Unknown" along with Idina Menzel, the voice actress of the main character, Elsa. The song received an Academy Award and was performed by Aurora and Idina Menzel (as well as multiple other voice actors for Elsa from all around the world) at the 92nd Academy Awards. On March 4, 2020, she released her own full version of the song as a single.

Other music released in 2020 in collaboration with others included the single "Cynical Mind" by Gundelach (March 13, 2020). "Vinterens gåte", a song written and performed by Aurora, and "Det hev ei rose sprunge", a traditional song in a duet with Herborg Kråkevik both released on the Christmas album Juleroser by Herborg Kråkevik (November 20, 2020). The single "Stjernestøv" was released on November 23, 2020, as part of a Christmas TV show with the same name.

2020-2023: The Gods We Can Touch

Near the end of 2019, Aurora noted that she was working on two, and later three separate albums simultaneously. Much later she would state having started working on The Gods We Can Touch after writing "Exist for Love" in January 2020.

"Exist for Love" was officially released in 2020 and it became the first single from her fourth studio album, The Gods We Can Touch.

Throughout February 2021, Aurora released five compilation EPs in celebration of her 2015 single "Runaway" receiving over 100 million streams on Spotify: For the Humans Who Take Long Walks in the Forest, Music for the Free Spirits, Stories, For the Metal People and Music for the Fellow Witches Out There. In March 2021, "Runaway" went even more viral on social media. The song charted internationally and became her second top 40 song on the UK Singles chart. Due to its success, a guitar acoustic, piano acoustic, and an alternative version were released, and advertisements supporting the song were run.

In June 2021, Aurora started teasing her next song with cryptic imagery involving masks, and with a browser game. She then released "Cure for Me" in July as the second single of her upcoming studio album. It was also released on vinyl, with "A Potion for Love" on its B-side.

Upon the release of the third single "Giving In to the Love" on October 14, Aurora officially announced the track listings and release date of The Gods We Can Touch. In November, American singer and producer Sub Urban released "Paramour", featuring Aurora's vocals on it. She also released the original song "Midas Touch" for the soundtrack of TV series Hanna.

In December, the fourth single "Heathens" was released by surprise and a live performance video of the song was published. In anticipation for her new album, Aurora unveiled "A Dangerous Thing" and "Everything Matters" (featuring French singer/songwriter Pomme) as a dual single released in early January 2022.

AURORA's fourth studio album The Gods We Can Touch was released on January 21, 2022 and features 15 tracks. A Temporary High was promoted as its new single with a music video and the release of an acoustic version. The choreographed concert film A Touch of the Divine premiered shortly after the album release.

Aurora went on her extensive The Gods We Can Touch Tour in March 2022, with support acts Metteson, Sub Urban, Thea Wang, Sei Selina, Blusher and Hannah Storm. During the tour, Aurora surprise released her singles "The Woman I Am", "The Devil Is Human" and "A Potion for Love".

Other projects included "Storm", a single together with Taiwanese singer/songwriter Qing Feng, released in June 2022. September saw the release of the song "Hunting Shadows" for the 15th anniversary of video game Assassin's Creed. In October, the soundtrack album for BBC documentary series Frozen Planet II was released, Aurora provided vocals on 21 tracks. Several songs from Aurora's discography were featured in a season of video game Sky: Children of the Light and its season ended with an interactive virtual concert, which was released as the soundtrack album Sky: Concert in the Light. In 2023, she featured on "Butterflies", a song by Tom Odell, on "Bring Back the Color", a rework by San Holo of her unreleased track "The Sun", and on "My Sails Are Set" for television series One Piece. She was also one of the artists on a Nick Drake tribute album with her cover of "Pink Moon".

2023-present: What Happened to the Heart?

There were several hints in 2022-2023 that Aurora had started working on a new album. The singles "Your Blood", "The Conflict of the Mind" and "Some Type of Skin", as well as their music videos, were released in November 2023, January 2024 and March 2024, respectively.

Aurora went on a Norway club tour in March 2024, with support act by Amalie Holt Kleive.

On March 28, she announced the upcoming album What Happened to the Heart?, which will be released on June 7, and the Europe tour in September-October.

Discography

Main article: Discography

• Running with the Wolves (2015 EP)
• All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend (2016 album)
• Infections of a Different Kind - Step 1 (2018 album/EP)
• A Different Kind of Human - Step 2 (2019 album)
• The Gods We Can Touch (2022 album)
• What Happened to the Heart? (2024 album)

Filmography

Director

• Evigheten - "Eksistensen"
• "Exist for Love"
• Iris - "To Be Mine (Is to Lose Your Mind)"
• "Cure for Me" (as co-director)

Documentary subject

• Into the Light (2015)
• Nothing Is Eternal (2016)
• Once Aurora (2018)

Tours

• All My Demons Tour
• The Gods We Can Touch Tour

Gallery

Photoshoots

You can find the main article on AURORA photoshoots here.

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

Awards and nominations

Year	Organization	Award	Work	Result
2014	P3 Gull '14	Årets Nykommer (Newcomer of the Year)	Aurora	Nominated
2015	GAFFA-prisen	Årets Norske Soloartist (Norwegian Solo Artist of the Year)	Aurora	Won
2015	EBBA '16	EBBA	Aurora	Won
2016	Spellemannprisen '15	Årets Nykommer (Newcomer of the Year)	Aurora	Won
2016	Spellemannprisen '15	Gramo stipend (Gramo scholarship)	Aurora	Won
2016	Spellemannprisen '15	Årets låt (Best song)	"Running with the Wolves"	Nominated
2016	MTV Europe Music Awards	Best Norwegian Act	Aurora	Nominated
2016	GAFFA-Prisen	Årets Norske Album (Norwegian Album of the Year)	All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend	Won
2017	Spellemannprisen '16	Popsolist (Pop Solo Artist)	Aurora	Won
2017	Spellemannprisen '16	Årets Album (Album of the Year)	All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend	Nominated
2017	Spellemannprisen '16	Årets Musikkvideo (Music Video of the Year)	"I Went Too Far" (dir. Arni & Kinski)	Won
2018	GAFFA-prisen	Årets Norske Soloartist (Norwegian Solo Artist of the Year)	Aurora	Won
2019	Spellemannprisen '18	Årets Musikkvideo (Best Music Video)	"Queendom" (dir. Kinga Burza)	Nominated
2020	Spellemannprisen '19	Årets Internasjonale Suksess (International Success of the Year)	Aurora	Nominated
2021	P3 Gull '21	Årets Artist (Artist of the Year)	Aurora	Nominated
2022	Spellemannprisen '21	Årets Internasjonale Suksess (International Success of the Year)	Aurora	Won
2022	P3 Gull '22	P3-prisen (P3 Award)	Aurora	Won
2023	Spellemannprisen '22	Pop	The Gods We Can Touch	Nominated
2023	Spellemannprisen '22	Årets Musikkvideo (Music Video of the Year)	"A Temporary High" (dir. Sigurd Fossen)	Nominated
2023	Spellemannprisen '22	Årets Produsent (Producer of the Year)	Aurora & Magnus Skylstad	Nominated
2023	TONO EDVARD-prisen 2023	Tekst (Lyrics)	"The Devil Is Human" (Aurora)	Nominated

Trivia

• Aurora is bisexual.
• She does not like glitter.
• Her favorite places in the world are every mountain and every forest.
• She loves dogs.
• Her deepest fear is the sun.
• She loves all fantasy books, but some of her favorites are Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.
• On her free days, she paints and drinks tea.
• She does not like coffee.
• She loves rabbits, especially white ones.
• Her greatest concern is that humankind will ruin the planet and everything that lives on it.
• Some videogames she enjoyed are Skyrim, The Last of Us, Minecraft, Final Fantasy, Diablo III, Tekken and The Sims.
• Some of her favorite snacks are chocolate, carrots and blueberry muffins.
• She had an algae ball named Igor Septimus, whom she loved to put in the fridge.
  • She also had a pet balloon named Manchesto.
• She hates the heat.
• She dislikes hugging.
• Her zodiac sign is Gemini.
• She is an introvert.
  • She said that she is scared of people, but not scared of what they think of her.
• She used to make a list every night of things that reminded her that life was worth living.
• Aurora has created a list of 10 songs that made her the artist and person she is today. The list and her commentary can be found here.
• She considers herself to be "somewhere between 100 and 11" years old.
• Some of Aurora's favorite songs of hers are "The Seed", "Soulless Creatures", and "Infections of a Different Kind".
  • In the comment, "Soulless Creatures" was written as "Couples Creatures", likely a typo.
• The first album she bought was Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan.
• Her first job was washing a pizza restaurant with a hose.
• The first song she ever finished writing is called "The Lonely Man".
• She does not want to have children.
• She is not vegetarian or vegan and described herself as a pescetarian in the past, though she does eat meat sometimes.
• Aurora was able to recite up to 200 decimals of the mathematical constant pi (π), a practice she used to relax her mind.
• She is naturally blonde, but dyes her hair a paler grey-blonde.
• Her favorite plant is lavender.