Continuing her journey as one of the most exciting alt-pop stars to emerge this year, Au/Ra releases two new tracks embracing both sides of her musicality. The haunting ballad ‘Medicine’ which taps in to feelings of betrayal; and up-tempo ‘Dance In The Dark’ which is about facing and embracing your fears and bad times.
With her enchanting vocals, the Ibiza-born, Antigua-raised songwriter explores the challenges of being a teenager in 2019, writing music that touches on the issues today’s younger generation face on a daily basis. Her last release ‘Assassin’ explored the challenges of living with feelings of self-destruction; her summer hit ‘Panic Room’ (which went on to be remixed by underground duo Camelphat & now sits on over 40million streams) touches on the depth of anxiety attacks; and the track ‘Emoji’ tells the story of struggles with communication in today’s emoji-centric, online world.
The success of Panic Room landed it playlist additions across Radio, Capital and Kiss, and it remained solidly in the Top 40 for 9 weeks. In addition, her past single ‘Concrete Jungle’ has had over 32 million streams, and received critical acclaim from the likes of The Line Of Best Fit, Wonderland, NME, PopJustice and more.
In most of Au/Ra’s deeply visual, evocative lyrics is a sense of escapism, influenced by her fandom of anime and fantasy. Growing up devouring Studio Ghibli films, she’s always loved to disappear into the soft-edged, uncanny world of Miyazaki animations, and uses similar designs to flesh out the
visual world of her music. ‘I see my music in my head as anime,’ she says. ‘The world of those movies, they’re so different, and the characters have so many random traits that make them weird in a unique way.’
With her lovingly made outsider-pop, Au/Ra is providing a similar kind of space in her song writing:one where misfits feel at home and where the listener gets to peer for a minute through the lens of an artist who has simultaneously grown up outside the system but who speaks with the zeitgeist of her generation.
