I try to look for true indie spirits from all parts of the world that we can feature for our Non Nordic section, and Philippines based indie pop duo Violet Aurora definitely fall under that category. They’ve been happily churning our cute, charming indie tracks since 2018, and new song ‘Somewhere Brighter’ is an instantly likeable song.
They may have no direct Nordic connections, but they were at least inspired in name by the Northern Lights, along with the colour purple, and they’re slowly working their way towards their debut album, due sometime later next year.
Behind Violet Aurora are Manila based duo Kath and Moss, who met originally at college and although both based in the city they often write and record demos at distance from each other due to the insane Manila traffic, which as anyone who’s been there will testify, is similar to trying to escape from a chaotic music festival site 24 hours a day.
There’s a pretty simple premise behind ‘Somewhere Brighter’ as the band explain. “The song is about dreaming of better days, which we think is a timely release given the current circumstances the world is facing”. The opening is straight forward, but the vocals have this infectious, endearing quality and the melody in the chorus is catchy with heart warming lyrics to match. We really shouldn’t be afraid to dream ourselves out of this crisis.
Also check out last years release ‘Tonight’, which has built up close to ¼ million streams on Spotify. That’s good going. I’m not sure whether our favourite Norwegian Indie Pop festival ‘Indiefjord’ have featured any Filipino bands, but if they haven’t then maybe Violet Aurora would be a good place to start.