AU/RA RELEASES HIGHLY ANTICIPATED DEBUT ALBUM

Rising alt-pop visionary Au/Ra today releases her highly anticipated debut album, heartcore, via Polydor Records. This bold and emotionally immersive 16-track concept record seamlessly blends ethereal pop, electronica, hyperpop, and alt-rock to construct a vivid coming-of-age story centered on betrayal, trauma, healing, and self-discovery.

Crafted during creative sessions between London and Los Angeles, heartcore represents Au/Ra's most ambitious work to date. The project features a dynamic slate of collaborators, including producers Micah Jasper, King Ed, Halo Boy, and Kill Dave, alongside co-writers Violet Skies, K.Flay, CYN, and Hilda Stenmalm, among others. The album unfolds structurally as a fully realized fantasy world, inviting listeners directly into the depths of Au/Ra's imagination through a character-driven narrative deeply inspired by her own personal experiences with mental health, identity, healing, and recovery.

Au/Ra explains, “heartcore is a concept album, where I open the dungeon of my mind for listeners to climb inside. I built a world where through my character Au/Ra, I explore the ups and downs of mental health, my childhood, recovering from rock bottom and how I healed from putting all my self-worth into being an artist. When I had my involuntary break from releasing music, I had a complete identity crisis because I didn’t know who I was without it. I turned to my inner world to cope, and this album was eventually born. So, there’s also themes of digital escapism, and a sprinkle of whimsy. And hope. For anyone going on a healing journey of their own, I hope these songs can help them through their own hero’s journey.”

Accompanying the full album launch is the focus track ‘E-MOTION’, which serves as one of the final moments on heartcore and a pivotal turning point in the record's overarching narrative. Following the profound emotional depths explored throughout the earlier chapters of the album, ‘E-MOTION’ represents the exact moment where hope begins to emerge from the darkness, beautifully capturing the protagonist's transformation as she reconnects with herself after enduring rock bottom.

Au/Ra says of the track, “When you’re feeling depressed for so long, you start to feel like a cold, offline machine. Writing this song was the exact moment I felt like the power flipped back on in my real life. In the heartcore story, it’s the part of the hero’s journey where things turn from being so bleak to having hope again, which is why it’s the penultimate track of the album.”

The record arrives on the heels of a carefully crafted, immersive rollout that has continually expanded the heartcoreuniverse. Just last month, Au/Ra unveiled the official heartcore comic book universe at MCM Comic Con, introducing eager fans to the album's rich visual mythology and central characters. Furthermore, the tracklist itself was revealed to the public through an innovative, interactive heartcore video game, where fans could personally enter the dungeon, collect song crystals, and embark on their own quest to heal and discover the heartcore.

Following a string of recent UK and EU shows, Au/Ra is set to join the star-studded line-up at this year’s All Points East festival on Saturday 22nd August. This festival appearance comes ahead of highly anticipated headline shows in the US later in the year, including a performance on Wednesday 2nd December at Baby’s All Right in New York (tickets) and a show on Friday 4th December at The Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles, California (tickets).

With the arrival of heartcore, Au/Ra reveals a deeply personal, uncompromising body of work that is rooted in darkness but ultimately defined by its message of hope. It is exactly that battle, and the delicate balance between those forces, which has been a definitive hallmark of the green-haired alt-pop artist’s dreamlike universe since the very beginning of her career.

“By the end of the album, I wanted there to be hope,” she adds, “Because despite everything that’s happened, I still believe in hope, for myself and for everyone else too.”

Full album tracklisting here

1. THE DESCENT 

2. CRACK!

3. this is character building

4. [portal]

5. high fantasy

6. last heart </3

7. SWAMP

8. Lo/Re

9. KILLSWITCH 

10. the apology

11. blue light

12. dear death

13. princess mononoke

14. rewire

15. E-MOTION 

16. heartcore