With his latest album, Misery (Pt. 2 Independent), singer/songwriter Aurora Takeover completes a story of addiction, recovery and love rendered in trippy, hyperpop lyrics and music.
The story is by turns grim and uplifting, but the music is full of acoustic electronic melodies that bring comfort after pounding beats and lush instrumentation tell the darker parts of the story.
He calls it “bipolar writing.”
“I like to make my songs kind of like a roller coaster,” he said. “I came up with it myself — this, like, bipolar writing. I have very heavy 808s, and the bass can be very, very, extreme. But I like that because it’s so different than when there’s just a guitar playing.”
His high-baritone-low- tenor voice is perfect for telling stories, and stories are where his lyrics live.
Misery (Pt. 2) is a concept album that finishes the fictional story of the protagonist’s fall into drug dependency and rise from it.
Part 1 starts with the protagonist strung out on drugs but finding his way to sobriety. In Part 2, he begins the first song, “Misery,” sober but haunted by his past, and, in the second song, “Relapse,” the title tells its part of the tale.
“And then it goes through him going cold turkey, and then good things started happening to him,” said Aurora.
The good things begin with love when he meets Shaylee, whose name is the title of the third song on the album, which then progresses through ups and downs in “Pressure,” “Bleeding,” “See You Die,” “Come Back New,” and “Dreaming.”
The album provides a great ride through the story Aurora tells. “See You Die,” the emotional breaking point of the eight tracks, is two intense minutes and 10 seconds of music and lyrics that are pure heartbreak and hope.
Misery (Pt. 1), released earlier this year, is also a fun, fascinating musical ride, but the instrumentation in Part 2 is much richer.
“The story behind that is I was recording all my music by myself, and I didn’t have a budget at all,” he said. “I decided this summer that I wanted a year of really trying music, so my budget became higher. I got an audio engineer.”
The engineer, who he said found him kind of by chance, is Get2Gether.
“We started working on this project, which is the Misery that you see now, and he was able to enhance my sound.”
As a matter of fact, it was Get2Gether who revealed to Aurora what his sound is.
“I didn’t know what to call myself. I didn’t know what genre I was until I started working with Get2Gether. He told me that I sound like hyperpop, like, my stuff fits into a hyperpop genre. And then I went, ‘Oh, so that’s what I make?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeaaah. Kind of.’ ”
When he goes through his list of influences, it’s easy to see how Aurora Takeover, 24 and putting out music only since 2019, might be confused.
When he was a child, he listened to and loved Elton John and Billy Joel, who were favorites of his father.
“I know, probably, every song by both of them. I mean, maybe not Elton John’s newer stuff, but all the ’70s and ’80s stuff I definitely know at least 90 percent of the songs by both those artists.”
Then, for some reason, he fell away from music for a while until, around age 12, he got into the rock of Green Day. During the teen angst of high school, he said, he turned to emo bands like My Chemical Romance and Sleeping With Sirens.
In college, about the time he started producing music, he found the emo rap of Juice WRLD, “and I didn’t really like rap.”
But: “I started to really like that because I loved his lyricism. That's about when I started making music that had beats behind it instead of live instrumentals. It was more computer-generated beats to follow the emo rap kind of theme.”
And then, he said, “right before creating this album, I was listening to a lot of this guy named Breakence, who is a hyperpop artist. I just didn’t know what he was.”
Out of all that, and his association with Get2Gether, his music has evolved. What he calls his “bipolar writing” applies to his music as well as his lyrics.
“Take the song ‘Misery,’ for example. It starts very quiet, and he’s talking about very nice things going on in his life. And then as the beats and more instruments start coming in, he starts having an anxiety attack. And once the 808s come in, which are the heavy bass that you hear at the bottom, it’s very hectic and now I’m screaming on the song.”
“And that happens in a lot of my songs,” he said.
He wants to make music his full-time employment. He has made three videos, all on his own, from songs on Misery (Pt. 2) — “Misery,” “Bleeding” and “Come Back New.”
He is also planning and working on his next project, Egocentric, another concept album. This one will tell a story about the highs and lows, the benefits and downfalls of ego and self image.
“I just started writing on that, and I’m excited for it,” he said. “I don’t have it all fully mapped out yet, but I have a song completely done and eight more written, and I think I’m going to write three more to bridge them.”
Take a musical ride and connect with Aurora Takeover on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
RELATED STORIES
Today's Top Hits
LET’S TALK
 (1).jpg)
.jpeg)
COMMENTS
Leave a comment