Aurora by Caleb Hinz

For the past nine months or so, I have been gravitating into a new direction with my life, art, relationships and music. My mind and body have been changing and evolving, contorting the world around me into something that I never knew. Making minor sacrifices in order to expand myself further and develop myself as a person and artist.

Nine months before this album's release, in the biting cold of the February winter, the roots of the Aurora project were born with the creation of the songs evoL weN and Bittersweet. These two, and the majority of the songs on this album were created in one sitting starting around midnight and going sometimes until 6 o'clock in the morning. I found that writing and recording this way allowed the songs to fully capture the emotion, state of consciousness or message that is initially expressed with the birth of an idea. Also, with this new method of production, the sounds began to take a different form. A slow, mellow and sometimes dark atmosphere was beginning to emerge with the birth of Aurora.

With this new stage of evolution in my music and creative expression, I also began experimenting with other types of art in attempt to merge them all into one sonic ball. Being in the boundary waters for sixteen days without and bridge to my normal life and ordinary practices, I was forced to let out my creative urges in new ways. I began drawing and writing poetry everyday. Already having a few poems and literary ideas for this project, the new addition of many scribbled notes and sketches began to take this Aurora project into a place I never saw it going.

In this time of change, I began to notice myself gravitating away from my previous rhythmic explorations with electronic music and into the new journey of melody and song writing. I started to become more interested in discovering my own melodic centers and fundementals. Along with this musical and melodic transformation I reaquainted myself with my love of guitar. Nothing can overcome the natural and organic expression of music being physically created with a human body and an instrument. Electronic music exists in a digital world. Those songs do not live in the heart of the artists. Instead the sounds exist on a hard drive on some computer. Occasionally I could turn some knobs, smash some buttons and flail my body around in order to perform said music. But I was never able to recreate it with my own body and a physical instrument squirting physical and analog sound into the air, moving the souls of others. I feel that with this new musical direction I am able to develop a deeper connection with my art. This will hopefully allow me to keep moving in an honest direction and keep increasing the authenticity and honesty of my work.

As for the title Aurora…..what does it mean? Aurora is the peace, the freedom of silence, the effortless connection, the third party waves of communicative energy flowing infinitely throughout the universe. Aurora is my subconscious, the ways of my mind. She is the world of dreams in my head that gives me a home away from the distractions of the human physical. Aurora is the goddess of dawn. The dark, seemingly evil force burning the bridges in my mind and pushing me further and further away from where I was. She is the present moment. The always existing life of freedom and bliss that we too often choose to ignore for a box of obligations delivered to us by our own internal distractions. Aurora has the power to Help Guide me back In The Snow and away from the Games of My Own Mind. Aurora has the power to Switch me ON into the Bittersweet world of silence. Aurora is my reassurance that this life is worth living. As the cloud of distractions becomes transparent, we can again realize that we are always free.



Special thanks to Fenja Abrams and Enoch Wilson. Without you two I would not live in the world that I do.

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