Written across London and the South of France over the past four years, Lauren Auder’s debut album is meditative, soothing the souls of all who listen, and it landed via True Panther Records earlier today. Dubbed, The Infinite Spine, it unfurls across its 12 tracks like a body finally becoming whole. It’s intimate, sombre and introspective, with the album’s imagery evoking the songwriter, storyteller and composer’s struggle coming to terms with her experience as a trans woman. From the lead-off ‘33 & Golden’ to the outro ‘All Needed Here’, the French-born, London-based artist was plagued by the question: “what if we could rewrite history?” Though there is no definitive answer to be discovered, through Auder’s baroquely orchestrated pop songs fusing classical and post-rock elements with contemporary themes, it reflects the heaviness and celebration that comes with surviving in a world that leaves you to forge your own path, simultaneously imagining a utopian future where blame is extinct.
Prior to the album’s release, Auder imparted an a/b single, ‘Hawthorne81/Atoms’ which arrived alongside disquieting visualisers. ‘Hawthorne81’ is enigmatic, spiritual even, and projects a aura of euphoria, while ‘Atoms’, a heartfelt ballad culminating with an epic marching band-fueled coda, is ‘inspired by a falsely comforting thought, that of not being responsible for this world,” according to the artist.
The Infinite Spine follows the release of a myriad of EPs between 2018 and 2021, most recently ‘We2assume2many2roles’, a powerful and tumultuous single about impermanence in the human experience, as well as a whole slew of nuanced, poignant singles and collaborations with Celeste, Clams Casino, Caroline Polachek, Danny L Harle, Mura Masa, Jessica Winter, Dviance and Alex Parish.
Here, we sat down with Lauren Auder to talk about the new album, its eerie artworks, nihilism and fantasy.
1. How does it feel to finally be releasing your debut album?
“Amazing and terrifying, it’s been such a long process to birth it, I’m so excited to see it take its first steps.”
2. Tell us about the visual world of The Infinite Spine, and the double single artwork by Crowns & Owls especially. Are aesthetics important to you?
“As odd as it sounds, music is rarely the first thing to arise from my writing process. It often begins as a series of images and words that then call forth the songs. So yes, it’s extremely important to me. I’ve felt so lucky to be surrounded by such incredible artist’s such as C&O who have believed in my vision from the get [go]. It’s a real labour of friendship on that front.”
3. The imagery evokes your struggle coming to terms with your experience as a trans woman, can you expand on this?
“I think the imagery really reflects the attempts to connect with my own body, how much of a cage that can feel like as well as my attempts to slot into society in a way that feels comfortable. And the horror that comes with that too.”
4. Why did you title the album The Infinite Spine? What does it mean?
“It’s the first image that appeared to me as I started to conceptualise my debut album. I wanted a new symbol, something that felt evocative of the continuous mission of self understanding and determinism. It can be a genuinely frightening experience too, this image of a disembodied spine felt so obviously reflective of that.”
5. Can you tell us about the a/b single track “hawthorne81” and “atoms”? We know “atoms” is “inspired by a falsely comforting thought, that of not being responsible for this world,” but why is something you wanted to communicate and what is the idea behind “hawthorne81”?
“Hawthorne is a song about the seductiveness of nihilism. The song begins proudly announcing the narrators desire to waste away before being confronted with the reality that that would never satisfy their anger and sadness, that they must create and recreate to free themselves.”
6. You were haunted by the question “what if we could rewrite history?” throughout the album’s creation. What potential answers to this question did you discover?
“I think really, the conclusion is that that desire is, again, just an escapist fantasy. That we have to face the world as it is to make it anew.”
7. How have you grown as an artist between your last EP release and this album?
“I think my previous EPs have been great and fertile ground for me to experiment, with sound and lyrics, but really were just that, an attempt to find the tone I wanted to bring forth on this record.”
8. Why do you like to combine the classical with modern pop and post-rock?
“I think there is a grandeur in those sounds that immediately captivated me when first delving into the genres. It’s really simple as that, the inner world is so huge, it only felt right to adopt those modes.”
9. What secret talent do you have that nobody knows about?
“I have a really good magic trick, it involves three assistants and a chair.”
10. What’s next for you?
“I want to keep working within the world of this album, to see how it unfurls, what I’m inspired to make around it once it has a life of it’s own!”
Photography courtesy of Lauren Auder. ‘Infinite Spine’ is out now, available for streaming on all major platforms.
