When British electronic titans The Chemical Brothers released their debut album Exit Planet Dust in 1996, Aurora Aksnes had only been alive for 11 days. But three decades on, Tom Rowlands – one half of the titular Brothers – and Norwegian art-pop artist AURORA have forged a deep-rooted friendship and become bandmates, fusing their names to create TOMORA.

The duo were initially exposed to each other through their art; AURORA fell in love with Chems’ soundtrack to 2011 thriller Hanna while Rowlands’ jaw hit the floor upon watching AURORA’s 2016 Glastonbury set on TV. Tom emailed her team, and the pair began lending a helping hand on each other’s songs, including Chems’ funky 2019 hit “Eve Of Destruction” and dark-pop AURORA track “My Body Is Not Mine” in 2024. Gradually, these collaborations unfolded into a new creative union.

“It’s new oxygen into lungs,” AURORA says of their debut album, Come Closer, which lands today (April 17). “In our other lives, we both probably feel a certain weight of expectation or pressure to do something or be something,” adds Rowlands. “I wanted to make music with AURORA, because it’s been invigorating and joyful when we’ve done it before. We give [each other] permission to try things that you may shy away from in another world.”

The Chemical Brothers have won six Grammys for hits like “Do It Again”, “Galvanize” and “Go”. Their influence is writ large across 21st-century dance music, from the grit of French electronic duo Justice to Disclosure’s radio-ready house and, most recently, the breakbeats of Welsh duo Overmono. AURORA, meanwhile, has hit the heights of Wembley Arena through five albums of enigmatic avant-pop.

These worlds are forged together on Come Closer, on which Rowlands’ high-octane dance lineage meets AURORA’s theatrical, larger-than-life vocals, from euphoric floor-filler “Somewhere Else” to the cinematic storytelling of the title track. “The whole purpose is to connect unexpected people through music,” declares AURORA. This ethos is the crux of the new project: a commandment to connection, whereby we can reshape our surface-level differences into unity.

Below, the pair tell Dazed about Come Closer, starting afresh and TOMORA’s core values.

Why did you both feel the urge to start TOMORA from scratch, compared to finding something new within the existing blueprint of your main projects? 

Rowlands: It was that feeling of making music with your friend. The moment of creation, the spark of something happening – we both hunt that feeling. Together, the two of us make something we can't make on our own.

AURORA: If we have so much fun writing in service of a thing that exists, [just imagine] experiencing that fun without any pre-decided idea.

Rowlands: It’s nice to approach something with no past. TOMORA didn’t come with any future expectation, but didn't come with any past weight.

AURORA, you mention “writing in service of a thing” – how did officially defining and naming the project TOMORA affect the free-flowing approach to your creativity?

AURORA: I remember when we knew, ‘Okay, this is a world with many multitudes, and this deserves its own name. We don't need to gatekeep it anymore, we are ready for people to hear it if they want to.’ ‘In a Minute’ feels like a real machine… that was [written] with TOMORA in mind, when it already existed. It did affect us, but in a really good way. How do we become really precise now, with this very free thing?

You’ve known each other for nearly a decade. What does friendship look like outside of making music together? Did the 26-year age gap ever present any roadblocks? 

AURORA: Not at all, because we are both very ageless. Equally playful, still curious and very hungry for food, experiences, wine, humour – everything. Hanging out with a cat, watching figure skating.

Rowlands: The Winter Olympics was big for us.

AURORA: I guess it’s the same curiosity for life and music.

Rowlands: AURORA is a very wise-

AURORA: Old man!

You’ve described Come Closer as a “search for connection”, but in your existing projects, you regularly play to massive crowds – arguably the pinnacle of connection. What connection were you lacking in your lives?

AURORA: New things are good for people, [but] they can make people really scared. Through history, we constantly judge each other and are fearful of each other if things are different, but if you come a bit closer and see what’s truly in front of you, it becomes easy to love what you’re seeing and who or what you’re spending time with. Don’t be scared, come a bit closer. It’s strangely as political as it is emotional.

In this modern world of individualism, influencers and focusing on ourselves, are those the values you want TOMORA to stand for?

AURORA: Cross bridges, come closer and explore what may seem different. Music is the only place where people really gather in large groups and it’s not to protest against injustice – or in the name of hatred, which people also do – but because this is fun, human and based on love. You instantly have a common thing.

Rowlands: It really connects to my experience of early raving… when I went to Orbital raves in 1989. It’d be such a mad mix of people who you normally wouldn’t see all together. That feeling of bringing disparate people to share this same emotion at this one moment.

In TOMORA, we enjoy the idea of building this safe place where people are needed and they’re welcome

– Tom Rowlands, The Chemical Brothers

Has that feeling been lost, Tom, or has it always bubbled under the surface?

Rowlands: Crowds seemed more like a disparate mix of people when you went to those early things, because people hadn’t really figured out what it was. You’d get a mad mix of people drawn to this new experience of dancing in a field until six o’clock in the morning.

How has dance music changed since you started out, Tom? In some ways it feels bigger than ever, but also dominated by phones and filming instead of transcendence. 

Rowlands: Things are always in flux. I won’t be one of those people: ‘Oh, it was better however many years ago.’ Things just move around. I’ve been to a few things recently with a strict no-phone policy, and it does give] a different feel. People definitely feel less inhibited.

AURORA: Less scrutinised, also. More free, not observed, which is becoming a worse and worse problem for people to grow up with now.

Rowlands: In TOMORA, we enjoy the idea of building this safe place where people are needed, and they’re welcome, to make this identifiable environment where you can come and lose your mind, connect with your fellow human and have an intense experience together.

COME CLOSER is out now