TN:179 TOMORA (Tom Rowlands of Chemical Brothers & AURORA)
4/21/20261 hr 30 min
John is joined by TOMORA to talk about how they wrote, recorded and produced the album COME CLOSER. TOMORA are an electronic music duo made up of The Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands and AURORA. Both have excelled in their fields: The Chemical Brothers’ ten albums helped define electronic music, while Norwegian artist AURORA’s ethereal songwriting has won her a devoted worldwide following. The duo began collaborating when Aurora featured on The Chemical Brothers’ Grammy Award-winning 2019 album No Geography. In turn, Tom produced parts of AURORA’s What Happened To The Heart? (2024). That led to TOMORA and their debut album COME CLOSER. Sitting down at Baltic Studios, they discuss creating the album’s distinctive soundscapes and recording AURORA’s striking vocals. They also introduce John to the vintage synthesiser crucial to the album’s sound, plus answer Patreons’ questions! Tracks discussed: Somewhere Else, I Drink the Light, Come Closer LISTEN to COME CLOSER by TOMORA, AURORA, The Chemical Brothers TAPE IT Thanks to our friends at Tape It for supporting the podcast. Visit tape.it/tapenotes or use the promo code TAPENOTES in the app to get 20% off. QUBE Find out more about Qube membership here. MAKE NOISE PRO AUDIO Use the code TAPENOTES10 for 10% off all Franklin Audio products at makenoiseproaudio.com MUSIVERSAL Skip the waitlist and get your discount HERE Recorded at Baltic Studios. LINKS TO EVERYTHING TAPE NOTES linktr.ee/tapenotes Intro Music - Sunshine Buddy, Laurel Collective - https://lynkify.in/song/sunshine-buddy/YT47TLFI GEAR MENTIONS DMX 15-80S Eventide H3000 Harmoniser Neumann U87 Microphone Takstar SM-9 Octave-Plateau Voyetra 8 MPC60 Moog System 55 Makenoise DPO Logic Pro X E-MU S-1200 Sampler EMS Synthi AKS Elektron Monomachine Cong Burn Strokes Ableton Live OUR GEAR https://linktr.ee/tapenotes_ourgear HELP SUPPORT THE SHOW If you'd like to help support the show you can join us on Patreon, where among many things you can access full length videos of most new episodes, ad-free episodes and detailed gear list breakdowns. KEEP UP TO DATE For behind the scenes photos and the latest updates, make sure to follow us on: Instagram: @tapenotes YouTube: Tape Notes Podcast Discord: Tape Notes Patreon: Tape Notes To let us know the artists you’d like to hear, Tweet us, slide into our DMs, send us an email or even a letter. We’d love to hear! Visit our website to join our mailing list: www.tapenotes.co.uk
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First 90 secondsJohn Kennedy· Host0:00
Hello, welcome to Tape Notes and our new episode with Tomora, the collaboration between Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers and Aurora. It was so great to meet them. Tom and Aurora joined us at Baltic Studios in Baltic's beautiful Studio 2. We'll put some pictures of the studio up on our Instagram. It really is a stunning space with some amazing gear, and Tom had gone to a lot of effort because he brought his synth along, his EMS Synthi AKS, and his AMS 1580 effects unit, and the team at Baltic very kindly hooked this all up to the studio outboard gear as well. But the adage that you shouldn't take the synth out of the studio still rings true, because we had some problems with it, and it just wasn't functioning as it normally did in Tom's setup. But he'd gone to all this effort. But that was kinda part of the whole vibe. They were committed and so into talking to us about this incredible album that they've created together, and it's such a lovely collaboration. The energy and the chemistry between the two of them is almost palpable. Um, and they're such lovely people and so entertaining. Aurora is such an inspirational figure, such a great character, and you've just gotta listen to her to feel inspired and excited and full of joie de vivre. We left the recording really buzzing about the whole thing. As usual, we filmed the whole interview, so if you'd like to watch the full video and see Tom and Aurora break down the sounds in their sessions, just head over to patreon.com/tapenotes. Membership also gives you access to behind-the-scenes content, the chance to ask our guests questions, and entry to our monthly gear giveaway competitions. This month's gear giveaway