Love Letter To A Record: Iniko On Aurora's 'All My Demons'

Music Feeds’ Love Letter to a Record series asks artists to reflect on their relationship with the music they love and share stories about how it has influenced their lives. Here, Brooklyn alternative soul singer-songwriter Iniko opens up about their love for Norwegian artist Aurora’s debut 2016 LP ‘All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend‘.

It comes as Iniko is gearing up to visit Australia for the very first time this July, bringing their Awakening World Tour to down under for a trio of headline dates in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane (suss the details down below).

Iniko: Love Letter To Aurora’s All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend

My Love Letter To A Record is to Auora’s 2016 release All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend. I remember discovering the album later in 2016 when I was doing an exchange program in Japan. I was feeling very lost and confused at the time about whether I should be pursuing music.

I first heard Aurora when I came across her music video for ‘Runaway’ on YouTube. It was one of the first times that I felt seen as an artist and that a big part of my own voice was also being heard.

Her music evoked so much emotion and caught my attention immediately and made me realise how I wanted people to feel when they listened to my music. It resonated so deeply with me. I love celtic music, ancient music, tribal music and Indigenous music and that has always been something that has been a part of me, so after I heard ‘Runaway’ It really gave me the confidence to express myself and stay true to my art.

One of the many tracks on the album that I love is ‘Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1)’. I remember being immediately pulled in from the lyrics, wondering where the song was going to take me. When it comes to music, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something I personally went through word for word to captivate me. I think what makes Aurora’s music so alluring is how it is jarring in a way and when you listen to the metaphors and the melodies she uses, you can always find your own meaning in her songwriting.

This album was definitely the soundtrack of my spiritual awakening. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that’s exactly what was happening. I was at a point in my life where I knew that who I was trying to be for so long, was not who I was in that moment. I was in the process of an ego death of literally rebuilding myself and unlearning all of these things that I thought were right.

One of the most defining moments in my life was seeing Aurora live. It was my birthday and I remember everything falling into place and knowing that becoming an artist was exactly what I wanted to do. After seeing her live, I was just like, okay, well, I don’t know how, but I’m going to get to a point where she’s gonna notice me. I had no idea how, but she’s going to notice me and that’s what’s going to happen. It’s really funny because one of the first videos that went viral was this video where I have long orange braids and this green dress, and I’m just freestyling in my backyard and she commented on it and followed me! I was like, “what the fuck?!” I want to reach people and move people and the fact that I was able to move this person who moved me in a way where It made me want to change the trajectory of my life, I thought this must be something special. Something is happening. I must be doing something right so I kept going. To this day, I’m still a massive fan of her.