TOMORA: "God knows this world needs us to stand up for and fight for each other now”

Last November, an unknown alias popped up on the lineup announcement for Coachella. An accompanying social media account started sharing cryptic posts, and speculation about the mind(s) behind Tomora swirled.

The deerstalker hats and loupes were put away in December following the release of ‘Ring The Alarm’. The single revealed Tomora to be a collaboration between Norwegian art-pop queen Aurora and Tom Rowlands of big beat pioneers the Chemical Brothers.

Tom + Aurora = Tomora. Not rocket science in hindsight (additionally and fortuitously, the name’s Japanese translation is something along the lines of “a friendly companion on Earth”). A bigger tell-tale sign is the fact the two are friends who have worked together before.

They have long admired each other’s output: Aurora fell in love with the Chemical Brothers’ score for the 2011 film Hanna, while Tom was transfixed after watching the singer’s 2016 Glastonbury set on TV. Fast forward a bit and Aurora would feature on the Chemical Brothers’ 2019 album No Geography, while Tom returned the favour on Aurora’s 2024 opus What Happened To The  Heart?

“We didn’t know we were making an album or forming a band or anything,” says Tom of Tomora’s origins. “We were coming up with all these ideas. It didn’t feel like ‘The Chemical Brothers featuring Aurora’ or vice versa. It felt like we were making something that was its own little entity. Then the songs came, and we were like, ‘This deserves its own world.’”

“It’s the mix between Tom’s world and my world that we both have in our little brainies,” continues Aurora. “It seemed like we were pulling sounds and themes and personalities from a different universe, which wouldn’t exist without the merging of our minds. Which is not a feeling I often have.

“It’s such a privilege to be able to write or produce things with Tom. The way he finds noises and sounds is extremely creative and surprising. It’s such a delight to hear something you didn’t expect in the morning, and then you get things in your brain, which wouldn’t come into your brain, unless you heard something entirely new that day.

“I really adore that feeling. It’s so nice to be able to capture it. We’ve captured it 11 times now, and we have an album.”

That album is Come Closer, recorded between Aurora’s native Bergen and Tom’s home studio in Sussex. If you want to understand why this project exists at this particular moment, perhaps all you need to do is ask the pair how they’re feeling about it.

“I would say in this room, in this space, in this project, very good! In this world… confused and scared,” says Aurora.

“That’s a good, comprehensive study of where we are at,” agrees Tom. “On the micro, everything’s good. On the macro…”

And there’s a feeling that this uncertainty about the world fostered their bond: Come Closer is a title that points towards an exploration of connection and sensation.

“When me and Tom write or go into the studio, we always keep the world in mind, we keep people in mind,” Aurora says. “We talk, we have long conversations. It’s so important to talk  about things in a grounded way. I think it’s an inevitable part, as politics and politics are emotional, and emotional things are the backbone of what it means to be human and ‘come closer’,  as you say.”

Making the LP was, by the pair’s admission, an emotional experience. Tom even says he cried during the production of the title track.

“Aurora, she just kills me…” he laughs. “The album was a very emotional experience for us.”

“It was very intense,” Aurora continues.  “We both feel things very strongly and this record is a real communication of that. It’s been very human, you know? These frequencies in our music are very human and earthly to me. And we just had as much humanly fun as possible while making it. We ate good food, had some good wine, moved, danced, and had a good view. He’s been in Norway, I’ve been in England.”

TOMORA. Photo: Cat Gundry-Beck

PEAK FORM

Running from track to track like a Boiler Room set, the record is a euphoric, non-stop rager that rivals the Chemical Brothers at their block rockin’ best. Aurora’s voice is in peak form too, soaring on the title track, then dissolving into the glitchy maelstrom on tunes like ‘Somewhere Else’.

Did Tom find it hard to know when to let Aurora’s voice lead, and when to treat it as just another instrument to manipulate?

“Well, we produced the record together, so these are decisions that are made with the two of us,” he says by way of correction. “Aurora’s voice is an incredible thing to witness. We would never tune it or nudge it along, to try and somehow airbrush or trick you into thinking it was something else. We’re not interested in that.

“I’d rather hear Ian Curtis sing to me than someone who is pitch perfect all the time. I want to feel something from what you’re singing. I don’t mind if it’s technically all over the place. It’s about the performance and what it’s communicating to you. It also helps that Aurora is an incredible singer who always sings so beautifully.

“The only processing we use, really, is when we try to make it sound like something completely different.”

Songs like ‘I Drink The Light’ and ‘Wavelengths’ continue this thread, the lyrics returning to human touch and the search for connection that permeates the album.

“Tom always says it so nicely, that one thing we know for sure in any crisis this human race goes through: we always need connection, and some aid to remind us of what we are, and what we represent, and who we should be for each other,” explains Aurora. “As long as we stay connected and close, we remember how much there is worth fighting and standing up for.

“And God knows this world needs us to stand up for and fight for each other now. It has needed us to do that for a long time, but strangely even more now. I feel it’s easier to fight when you’re emotionally connected to the things you’re fighting for. Because political things are just emotional things, aren’t they?

“And it is a strange world. It’s nice to provide music to ourselves and to people. It’s like escapism, but also a tool you can use for whatever you like.”

Curiosity runs through everything Aurora does. Questions are a recurring theme in her work: her last album was called What Happened To The Heart? after all, and the reflective lyrics on Come Closer suggest she’s an artist whose music tends to ask more than it answers.

“My favorite POV in the world is going to Earth for the first time,” she nods. “Imagine if you came from somewhere else, and saw the world and humans, and judged them and us with kindness, and questions and curiosity. Seeing the world as an outsider allows you to see small things as really important and large things as fleeting. It feels like that to me: addressing the world from a place where you don’t know what’s going on.

“Being curious is our job as both musicians and also just humans: the importance of apologising, changing your mind, adapting your opinions, learning. Always assuming there’s more to learn about each other, about your prejudice about people, about yourself, about cultures, languages.

SPIRIT OF CONNECTION

“There would never be bullying if we were curious about why people are the way they are, rather than just judging. As a person who knows what that feels like as well, it’s such a kind way to approach the world. It can never be wrong and it can never hurt anyone.

“This album is a lot about playing around, because curiousness is playfulness – that’s why a child is always playful and curious. And it feels very like the spirit of Tomora.”

The spirit of connection and closeness will be on display this coming May bank holiday, as Tomora headline the Button Factory with an intimate gig, as part of the inaugural series of Heineken Greenlight.

“The Chemical Brothers played in Ireland a lot in the ‘90s,” says Tom. “It’s a fantastic place to play. There used to be an amazing club called the Temple of Sound. We used to call it the Temple of Doom. We DJed in there once, a tiny 150-200 person club and it was just absolutely bananas. There are a lot of crazy kids in Dublin.”

“Sometimes because it’s so intimate, there’s a barrier of mystery that’s kind of gone, which is weird but also so tactile,” adds Aurora. “People are just there and you’re like ‘Whoa!’ So I’m excited for that closeness.”

• Come Closer is out now. Tomora play a Heineken® GREENLIGHT show at the Button Factory, Dublin on May 1.