“Earth is my favourite place I’ve been”: Enter Aurora’s alternative universe

Aurora is sitting in her bedroom, drinking a dark liquid from an elaborate chalice. “This is cola, by the way, not wine,” she clarifies, giggling. The Norwegian artist’s signature viking-meets-anime haircut frames her angelic face, which fills my screen. Behind her, beaded vintage purses and a dramatic silver gown cascade from the wall. Also in frame: a cabinet full of teas and spices and a picture of what appears to be Mary and baby Jesus.

Aurora is six minutes late, which she is profoundly apologetic for. She had been on top of a mountain in the rain and had to blow-dry her trademark cut before meeting with me. “It’s such lovely weather today. Really small raindrops from the sky,” she says. It’s fortuitous that she likes the rain; Aurora, born Aurora Aksnes, lives in Bergen, the rainiest place on Earth. It also happens to be the birthplace of the majority of Norway’s musical talent – DJ-producers Kygo and Alan Walker, electronic duo Röyksopp, even groundbreaking composer Edvard Grieg all hail from the city.

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But Aurora’s story begins on the west coast of Norway, in a village next to the Lysefjord, also known as the Fjord of Light. “A lot of nature, a lot of forest, and little people,” she says. “So I grew up quite sheltered.” A self-described introvert, Aurora spent more time as a child within her own imagination than she ever did in school. She did, however, find a great companion in nature, spending hours walking in the forests close to her home. “Nature, she belongs to all of us. And she offers so much tranquillity and peace and silence,” she says, noting that these days we tend to get “very affected by so many worthless things”. “Nature offers some peace. It doesn’t matter who you are when you’re in the forest.”

After coming across her older sister Miranda’s piano in the attic at just six years old, Aurora started writing music . As she explains it, it was her calling because she felt that she’d never heard a perfect song. At nine, she started to write lyrics in English, and at sixteen, after a video of her singing went viral online, she quit school, and went on her first tour. At 20, she released her debut album All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend, launching an international career. The record features the song “Runaway”, which, despite being six years old, has enjoyed a recent resurgence via TikTok. Today it has more than 500 million streams on Spotify.

This year, at 26, Aurora released her latest album, The Gods We Can Touch, to critical acclaim. While one would certainly identify Aurora as a pop star, she is hardly mainstream. Her music reflects her ethereal essence, somehow embodying the fjords and the mountains around which she grew up. Characterised by dreamy harmonies, her sound both transcends space and time and is rooted firmly in the modern internet pop landscape. Perhaps it ’s this dichotomy that allows her music to live both in the world of Disney’s Frozen II and in the popular video game Assassin’s Creed.

Though Aurora doesn’t recall much from her childhood, aside from “the things I was dreaming about and thinking about”, she does fondly remember her cat, Septimus. It’s the same name she’s given all of her pets – to her mind they’re all the same creature, reincarnated again and again. “To deal with pets dying, it was good for me. I was a sensitive little bean,” she says.

I reveal that I have a pet dog named Doggy, who is nearly 15 years old. As soon as I mention him, Aurora starts to cry, tapping into my impending heartbreak. These days she doesn’t have a pet herself – the lifestyle of an internationally touring pop star doesn’t suit animal companionship. She has, however, made a connection with a crow in the park next to her home. Aurora brings him shiny things, and he brings her gifts sometimes, too.

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In addition to Septimus, Aurora also found companionship in her two older sisters, Viktoria and Miranda. She says they are among the few people who understand her, granting her the space and freedom to be herself. “I was very disconnected from people as a child,” she says. “I learned to love most people in my life when I grew up and understood what the essence of family is, and love, and coexisting. Because I was really overwhelmed by just learning to exist in myself as a human.”

Today, Aurora and her sisters are not only best friends, but close collaborators; Viktoria is a stylist and costume designer and Miranda is a hair and makeup artist. The sibling trio collaborated on our editorial. Later, I ask Viktoria over text message what it’s like to work with her superstar sister. “She knows when to leave it to me, and I know when to shut up and do what she wants even though it kills my pride or ego,” she says, adding that Aurora is a “very relaxed boss”. Even over text message, the sisterly bond is apparent – Viktoria signs off with a plant leaf emoji.

“I hate the fashion industry,” Aurora boldly declares when we start to discuss her eight-year long collaboration with Viktoria. “Fashion is important to me – it’s art, and it’s beautiful – but I hate the sad, hidden part of it. It’s so un-transparent and secretive.” Rather than wear items with a nebulous history, she prefers to ask Viktoria to make her clothes. Sometimes she explains her vision, sometimes they draw up designs together. “It’s very loose and free,” she says.

A conversation with Aurora can spontaneously divert to musings on space and time, philosophy, and the human condition. It strikes me that she could have become anything she wanted, but she says she quickly settled single-mindedly on music. “I understood the importance of music quite early, and I connected it in my mind with nature,” she says. “Music is a way to pool what nature is for our souls into something we can hold in our hands, and kind of shape it into something more comprehensible.” Aurora speaks of nature and music as if they are an extension of herself or a language that she speaks fluently. As the thoughts tumble out, the cogs in my mind shift as I try to keep up.

The music she was exposed to early – Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Enya – is a sanctuary for Aurora. These artists offer both a means to self-understanding and a portal for escape. “My brain has sometimes been a good thing and sometimes been a bad thing. It depends on what situation,” she says. “Since I became an artist, it’s always been my goal to offer the same kind of escape.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Aurora is not one to focus on the superficial or mundane. “It doesn’t matter if you get likes or if you’re one centimetre skinnier in your arms. Or if you have a pimple on your forehead. We know it doesn’t matter, but we still let it affect us so much,” she says (for the record, Aurora gets many likes – she has 2.3 million Instagram followers). Instead, she spends her free time studying big ideas: our perception of time, reincarnation and the meaning of life.

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Aurora has a charming habit of pointing out concepts she doesn’t understand, as if she’s an alien observing human behaviour. Take, for instance, the way in which we tend to view our lives in a linear series of events - engagement, marriage, children. She chuckles and says that she doesn’t grasp any of it. “I always think of life as me being here, and then life just happens around me all the time and you’re in the middle of the now, which you always own. The now is always yours,” she says, gesturing her hands around her in a circular motion.

“Life is just all a round us, all the time. And we capture the right things sometimes, the right people and the right moments and opportunities.” She pauses to stare out her window towards the mountains, cloudy skies, and miniature raindrops she loves so much, adding, “Earth is my favourite place I’ve been in my life.”