AURORA Deep Dive Pt.20 - Analysing Structure, Texture & Instrumentation

What we've learned so far: AURORA uses a structure of Intro-Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge**-Chorus* for most of her songs; most also have pre-choruses; many also have a hook added to or replacing one of these main sections; commonly there is an interlude between the first chorus and the second verse; there are often two verses together at the beginning; in many instances the chorus has two separate parts. Each section is mostly made up of 4-bar or 8-bar sections, but sections longer than 16 bars in total are present more often than not. Many songs also make use of pauses.
*The final chorus is the most unreliable section; after the bridge, there is often a section that is either a hybrid of chorus material and other material or a coda/terminal climax featuring new material.
**The Gods We Can Touch has had a different relationship to the bridge especially, and many of the tracks don't have a bridge.
Notable exceptions to this model are Puppet, Through The Eyes Of A Child, Under The Water, Wisdom Cries, Churchyard, Infections Of A Different Kind, Mothership, Exist for Love, Artemis, A Little Place Called The Moon, Hunting Shadows, Your Blood, A Soul with No King, Do You Feel? and The Blade.

AURORA's likeliest approach for texture is to begin sparse and to build towards choruses and drop afterwards, with each successive version of a section having a thicker texture than the previous version; the bridge generally drops suddenly to a very thin texture, then builds considerably towards the next section; often in the outro the texture will be its heaviest, but it will also reduce suddenly before the song ends; there are also sudden drops in other sections, but these normally build back up soon after. Normally, verses are homophonic and outros layer melodies on top of each other, creating a straightforward polyphony. Large textural changes between sections are common, but they stay mostly static during sections other than the bridge.
Another, less common model is for a more intimate setting, where there are a consistent set of instruments continuing for the whole song, and the texture is relatively flat, but not without some parts dropping at different times.
Songs on What Happened To The Heart? have much more variety in production and are more likely to alter the main instruments to sound strange.
Notable exceptions to these models are Puppet, Warrior, Black Water Lilies, Wisdom Cries, Churchyard, The Secret Garden, A Dangerous Thing and The Light Beyond, A Soul With No King, Starvation, The Blade, Heart's Intuition and The Weight of Missing.

AURORA's instrumental palettes mostly stay consistent through each song, with extra elements being added as the texture thickens. The most common instrumentation choices are:
Solo Voice
Harmony vocals
Piano
Electric Bass
Electric Drums
Acoustic Drums
Distorted, Rough, Grainy Synths
Hollow, Nasal, Woody Synths
Breathy, Fluttery Synths
AURORA also uses big long reverbs all the time.
The songs from The Gods We Can Touch onwards tend to use many more guitars than previous albums.
Notable exceptions to these instrumental palettes can be found in Puppet, The Seed, The River, All Is Soft Inside, Gentle Earthquakes, Infections of a Different Kind, Warrior, Heathens, Artemis, A Little Place Called The Moon, Constellation, Animal Soul, A Soul with No King, My Name and My Body Is Not Mine.

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00:00 Intro
06:00 Invisible Wounds
41:14 The Flood
1:12:34 Hearts Intuition
1:30:50 The Weight Of Missing
1:55:58 You Can't Run From Yourself