The debut album from Tom Rowlands and AURORA's collaborative project is a rave-ready spiritual experience
TOMORA features Tom Rowlands (one half of Chemical Brothers) and Norwegian glacial-pop artist AURORA – hence their portmanteau moniker.
Coachella 2026 was TOMORA’s festival debut. When the lineup was announced, they were yet to release any music.
AURORA’s angelic, bell-like vocals (see: the title track, featuring breathtaking sustained notes) accompanied by Rowlands’ bombastic, oscillating beats? Yes, please.
- Label: Universal
- Release: 17 April
- Listen on Spotify
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This record commences with a short snippet of what sounds like an alien choir warming up. Elements are integrated gradually. Track three, A Boy Like You, introduces pew-pews and laidback beats then, BOOM! AURORA’s piercing, vibrato warcry cuts through Ring The Alarm’s menacing Godzilla-stomping beat and hectic bleeps.
“What are feelings?/ Are they real things?” AURORA ponders in The Thing, which closes out like gremlins in the machinery.
Have You Seen Me Dance Alone flirts with samba rhythms interspersed with surprise electronic squawks. During this provocative, theatrical standout track, AURORA channels Rosalía.
The contrast between AURORA’s stripped-back vocal hook and the massive drop in Somewhere Else, with its The Knife-esque sensibility, is whiplash-inducing. There’s also a percolating undercurrent. We can’t wait to shake our skeleton to this one live!
Built from a hyperfast “na-ma-na-na-nee” vocalising sample, In A Minute enters the rave cave, with metallic clacking that brings a rollercoaster’s lift hill phase to mind.
TOMORA will delight discerning listeners who seek pockets of spiritual enlightenment while they rave.
Sidenote: AURORA needs to voice a mystical Disney forest sprite.
