Aurora Aksnes (reportedly) sings the new soundtrack to this year’s John Lewis Advert. But who is she?
She thrilled UK crowds this year at Brighton’s Great Escape and Wilderness festival, where the pixie-like Norwegian singer got crowds dancing and doing an impromptu capoeira show at the Bandstand with her encore cover of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”.
She only began her musical career last year after a school friend uploaded one of her tracks online and she signed to Made Management and Decca later that year. She only has a small body of work – just six songs on her debut EP Running with Wolves but she’s been played on Radio One and Katy Perry has tweeted about her.
With her debut album expected to arrive early next year, she’s definitely one to watch (and listen to again and again).
Here are her vital stats.
NAME: Aurora Aksnes
AGE: 19
HOME: Bergen, Norway
INFLUENCES: She counts Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen among her influences and there’s a definite Björk-esque redolence to her voice; light, fluttering, moody and quivering with emotional pull, too.
WATCH AND LISTEN: Search YouTube to see her wring out fresh emotion from a cover of Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball”and go to Spotify for single ‘Awakening’. Here’s her gloriously evocative “Running with the Wolves” and Vevo for an acoustic version of her third single “Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1)”.
WHERE CAN I SEE HER LIVE? She’s playing Brixton Academy on 25 November in support of Of Monsters and Men, then she’s back in the UK in February, playing The Deaf Institute in Manchester on 1 February and Union Chapel in London on 2 February.
BUY: You can get her Running with Wolves EP from her website, here: aurora-music.com
The John Lewis Christmas advert will be published on YouTube at 8am on Friday 6 November
