Welcome to my reviewish write up on the debute album Come Closer from Tomora. Tomora is a joint side project from Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers and Aurora. The name is a portmanteau of their names, Tom-(Aur)ora, Tomora. It features a lot of vocals from Aurora, but its much much more heavy electronic music like you would hear from The Chemical Brothers.
Come Closer feels like a random project that came out of nowhere, but I have some pet theories that its sort of been a thing for a while, or at least the concept of a thing. A lot of people know Aurora did Eve of Destruction with The Chemical Brothers back in 2019. But she also did Bango, The Universe Sent Me, and Catch Me if I’m Falling in that same era.
But also, going into… conspiracy territory a bit. During COVID, the concert streaming site Vierlive launched, with the Somewhere Else series. One of these launch shows was Aurora, dancing away with some mannequins. But also, book ending the shows were these weird, very stylized vignettes. This style actually very much matches some of the aesthetics of Tomora. This album, also features a song called… Somewhere Else. Maybe its all a coincidence, but it makes me wonder if there is a.connection, or maybe even Tomora was supposed to become a thing much sooner than now.
Fun side fact, “Ring the Alarm” is an anagram for “Alright Ramen”
But enough random speculation. How is the album?
I like it. Granted, I have joked before that “My favorite Aurora track is not even an Aurora track” with Eve of Destruction. I am a huge Aurora fan, and I enjoy The Chemical Brothers music, though I don’t currently listen to as much techno music as I used to, I have had phases with a lot of it in rotation, and I have been drawing back into it some, partly from playing so much Beatstar.
I have seen some fans of Aurora come off a bit lukewarm on it though. Which I can absolutely get. Depending on how you enjoy her music, this album definitely may not be for you. If your primary driver for Aurora is her “softness” and poetic lyrics, you are not going to find that here. The album is all jagged edged beats and noise. Most of the lyrics are repeating the same lines over and over to the beats. Its all very much electronic house and trance style music.
While I enjoy the softness and lyrics of Aurora, my favorite parts are honestly the more tribal moments with heavily vocalizations. If you are into that side of Aurora, which shows in songs like The Seed, or Gentle Earthquakes, All is Soft Inside, Starvation, The Blade, etc, you will probably really enjoy these tracks.
It really shows off her vocal range and control, though there is a lot of distortion overlay on some of it as well. Even the overall visual aesthetic which is very futuristic synthwave is quite a bit different from her usual style.
It feels like my entire focus here is on Aurora, but I am coming at this from the Aurora side of the equation. The reality is, this is probably much more a “Chemical Brothers Album featuring Aurora” than a “Techno Aurora Album.”. But it does blend aspects of both. And many of the songs do start off kind of light, closer to Aurora, before building to a big beat dance sound wall, closer to The Chemical Brothers.
