“All art, all music, all anything… is from nature”

The strings of a lone guitar, interspersed with skittering sounds of the forest, a tease of a drumbeat, followed by quickened breath, and finally, a voice.

So begins Brian Eno’s remix of A Soul With No King, the single from Norway’s “dark folk-pop” singer-songwriter AURORA. While artists finding inspiration from the Earth is nothing new, some feel as though they sprung from nature fully formed. Such is the case with AURORA: her ethereal voice and evocative lyrics are an effortless fit for this score.

But this track doesn’t just sample nature – it credits it. AURORA has collaborated with the Sounds Right campaign, a brainchild of UN Live, to recognize nature as an artist on music streaming platforms. A percentage of revenue from the initiative will be earmarked for conservation charities.

In April 2024, AURORA joined the program’s creators for the official launch at the United Nations headquarters. After speaking on a panel with other collaborators, and graciously posing for photographs with fans, AURORA stole away to a corner to chat with me.

Sitting on the carpet, backlit by cloudy skies reflecting off the East River, we discovered a shared love for taking the ferry, marveled at how quickly the skyline changes, and admired the grotesque beauty of Long Island City’s iconic Pepsi-Cola sign, before delving into AURORA’s involvement with Sounds Right.

I saw an interview you did at the 2021 UN climate conference, where you described your relationship to nature as being ‘heartbroken’. I found that so honest and moving, and wondered if this project to recognize nature as a musical artist, has changed that relationship for you at all?

Yes and no. I’m still heartbroken because… we prove to be quite brilliant minds as a species, [but] we used that to just destroy everything in our way, and when we were done with that we destroyed each other. It’s heartbreaking to me, to see how much everyone is suffering. A lot of people are depressed, they’re empty; they don’t see the meaning in life. You see that people are struggling immensely, especially the younger generation. I think it’s because we know something is wrong. We know this is not right. We know we fucked up, and that we are starting to dig ourselves so deep into somewhere, and we’re feeling that we can’t go out of it.

When we’ve killed half the species that we share the Earth with… I think we feel it. We must, no? Somewhere inside. The balance is just profoundly off. And that’s what breaks my heart; if that’s what we became, and what we are. But being here helps me see that many people are as heartbroken, and I love getting reminded that everyone has a different task. There are people in finance, philanthropists, there are people working in offices and distribution. And then there are artists, musicians… Martyn Stewart, who recorded all the sounds (see box), just based on his love for animals and being a voice for the voiceless.

Did you have specific requests for Martyn Stewart, or did he just record sounds of your country and you picked what you connected with?

Me and Brian Eno worked together on this, and he actually asked Martyn to get Norwegian birds – which happen to be the same birds Brian Eno had in his garden when he was young! So by including those birds from Norway, we did kind of include the birds from England as well, because it’s the same animal, the same species, the same voices. So that was really touching and inspiring to both of us, that they were connected like that. I think the recordings are from, like, the seventies or eighties…so those specific birds, they’re probably gone now, which is also touching. Because so many species have been killed, and the birds that are on the recording, they’re not here anymore. There is just something very fitting about it.

You’ve been so open about your relationship with nature in your work and in your life. Are there specific natural sounds or places that you find especially inspiring?

Well, I always have my field recorder with me. So I’ve used so many sounds that I’ve gathered just on tour. But that’s more often the sounds of people. People and the cities and the noise and the shit — ugh, I hate it! But I love a bit of ugliness in my songs. Because my voice is so, like…not ugly? Or just very folky, and nature-esque. So it’s nice to then add the ugliness of the world.

But the sounds now I’m working with for my next project, it’s a lot of earth, it’s a lot of water, and it’s a lot of wildlife in my music. Because when I’m home, that’s what I go to. I go to the earth, the water…and then the birds. I’m lucky to live near them. So I get to see how beautiful nature makes me. And I’ve gotten to see that my whole life. That’s why I’ve talked about nature my whole life. But I’ve been an artist for ten years now, so in the beginning, people didn’t get it, I think. I think people thought I was very like, head in the clouds, talking about nature. I didn’t even know I was an activist! I just talked about [nature] because I loved it, you know? But then I grew up and I grew angry, because I realized, oh shit. She’s much more hurt than I’ve been aware of.

So do you feel the world has come around to where you always felt you were in terms of a relationship to the Earth? Have you noticed a change over the past ten years?

People don’t look at environmental activists as hippies anymore. Obviously, it’s looked upon as a privilege to fight for the environment, because there’s been so many social issues and racial issues and war for people to deal with. So for many people, environmental issues are looked upon as, like — okay, good for you, if you have time for that!

But when you look at it in the big picture — as you should, with something as large as nature — you see that fighting for her helps everyone. Because who is hurt the most when everything goes to hell? It’s everyone who is suppressed, the weakest, who are deprived of their voices and rights. So being an advocate for the environment is also for children, for women. And war — there’s nothing more hurtful to the environment than war. So you touch so many social issues by talking about the environment. And that’s what I like about now, that the world seems to take it more seriously now. I notice a huge difference. I was sixteen and now I’m twenty-seven…but it’s getting there.

Is your latest album also a collaboration with nature?

Absolutely. It’s called What Happened to the Heart? What on earth happened? So the album is basically about everything that we talked about today. What happened to the heart? How did we close it to not be hurt on behalf of each other anymore? How did we let the world come to this point? Because when you’re a child, it’s natural…I wonder why we learn to create such distance between our empathy and our intelligence.

You’re also a big Bob Dylan fan, aren’t you?

Yeah!

Me too. So many of his songs, like Masters of War, or Only a Pawn in Their Game, they’re really direct addresses to people he sees as causing most of the suffering in the world. Do you see yourself as a successor in that regard? Are your songs calling out people in power, or do you speak more to everyday people, or to the Earth itself?

I have only one song that speaks to people in power, that’s The Seed — because I’m angry at people just putting money before everything. What a boring…what the hell. I don’t get it! The biggest mystery on earth. Putting a pile of money over people’s lives…I don’t understand it.

But mostly I just talk to people. Because the people are much more powerful than the people in power. We just don’t know it yet. We remember it sometimes – that’s why any revolution has happened. That is a revolution, is the people. There’s no one-man revolution, there’s no one person….only with people behind them, they’re powerful. So I prefer to speak to everyone, to people. Because they are the kings of the world. And queens!

Do you feel any sort of kinship with nature as an artist – especially with this streaming model, where there’s so much conversation about artists being compensated fairly or unfairly through streaming platforms. Do you, now that you and nature are both artists in that regard, feel any kinship from an artist’s perspective with nature?

Very much. She’s felt iconic my whole life, but now it’s just more…it’s an emotional matter that is now on paper. Because all art, all music, all anything is from nature. Everything that’s ugly, everything that’s beautiful, everything that’s kind and cruel… it’s all connected, in this perfect and yet so unjust ecosystem. So it all comes from her anyway. We’ve used her in everything else, spiritually – since the first human opened their eyes. But now – it took us a few hundred thousand years to get here, when we actually just credit her! Because the way we talk about things changes how we think about things as a group. Like, the fact that pink was the male color of kings in the 1300s, then the minute we talked about it as a girly thing nobody liked it anymore? Because everything that’s girly, people don’t like.

It’s interesting how much it changes, the way we view things. And if we credit Mother Earth as an artist, it will change the way we think of her, and then we will also credit her more mentally as well. I believe it will have good ripple effects. And it just feels proper to put it on paper and make it official, even though it sounds weird to say, but like – it just feels decent, and proper, yes.

Something you seem to do quite well is striking this really beautiful line of pragmatism, but also optimism. How do you maintain that optimism?

Thank you! I’ve been thinking a lot about that. Because…[to have] only hope is senseless. But only nihilism, or realism, is death. So it’s only when the two work together that you have actual truth, and results. I do have hope, but I don’t only have hope – I make hope. So I will make sure that I have hope for the future, because I will do something now about it. I don’t just have hope. And I don’t just act. I act because then I will have hope. I don’t like either without the other, much.