The universal operatic aura of AroMa
The almighty and iconic Oakland artist AroMa; press photo courtesy of the artist.
Progression is fueled by the strange interplay of change and chance. Grounds shift on account of courageous leaps of faith into new terrain, spots of growth that bloom out of their initial discomfort into things that guide us toward better and brighter horizons. Through this friction of forging against tired grains are pathways towards more meaningful states of mindfulness, reclamation of identity, and higher degrees of inspiration. As the cyclical wheels of time have shown us time and time again, the brightest lights shine with the authenticity of true artistic authority when the outdated vessels of broken systems are shattered by virtue of their own obsolescence.
Through the ever unwinding twists and turns of these tyrannical and torrid twenty-twenties — a dynamic creative force emerged into the light of Bay. Enter Oakland artist AroMa, a multi-hyphen working in the realms music and film that embraces the fluidity of style and form. Conventions of constructs and genre are upended in intimately charged electro bursts of an urgent energy that creates a sound and sensibility that makes creative communities feel closer together. AroMa breaks beyond the confines of mediums, tearing down the curtains, dividers, barriers, and boulder blockades between people and the infinitude of artistic expressions.
On the new Smitten EP, AroMa chases off the chimera of trauma and all that terrorizes the self and the spirit that trades in exchanges of edification and exaltations that generate joy, the music of mutual influences and active exhibitions of appreciation. A capstone collection of four songs that follows the past six years of releases, AroMa takes their place on the mainstage as the ultimate pop icon. Stylistic modes move in a major way, like full body rocking motions that showcases an amalgamation of sounds found, and spun on a platter at Open Mind Music.
AroMa makes songs about making spaces for others, and making spaces for ourselves. “Goldmine” is the lead single, with vocals that haunt the dance halls of decadent decades past with the rustic mystique of a bloggy buzz act from the early 2010s. The track brings to mind a Scrooge McDuck vault, decorated like a clandestine Victorian boudoir that is located in amid a network of subterranean catacombs. AroMa orchestrates a privy places for two to meet, contribute to each other's consciousnesses in a communion between world traveling souls. The motifs of music as environmental architecture can be witnessed on "Territory" where the domiciles of the spiritual and personal become personified in the interpersonal dialogues that establish an assertive presence, prerogatives, insisting on the boundaries of emotional space.
The misty morning, smoky evening atmosphere carries forward on gauzy gaze of “Eyes”. The windows of the soul are observed as entrances into the psychic sections of the spirit that looks for a deeper truth and understanding. “Armageddon” gallops in a voyage to the outer apocalyptic edges of amour. With a similar immediate velocity as found on “Goldmine”, AroMa’s towering delivery set to a driving arrangement commands the tides and wind cycles of heaven and hell in a convergence of the earth sciences and the metaphysical. Smitten arrives at a theatrical conclusion like a collision of interstellar planets, a record that offers DIY love notes to ecstatic connections that were never before thought possible. AroMa offers arts that moves the heart to search beyond the self, seeking a new living truth, and bonds that blossom into beautiful new beginnings.
AroMa generously provided the following insights on the creative processes behind the new single, developmental histories, and more:
I wrote "Goldmine" sometime in 2022. My two closest friends, Xae and Nuxia, and I had just moved into our first art studio space together in downtown Oakland—a space that Nuxia and I still manage to this day. To be 23 or 24 years old at the time, having grown up in Oakland, getting a space like this—no small space at that—felt like a miracle. Here we could let our greatest art imaginations run wild, we could be loud, be chaotic, and hold space for our friends and other local artists...it was special.
None of us had much money, so the venture already started on a risk, a few dollars (some debt), and a dream. Most of our furniture we got for free and lugged up the staircase and into the elevator. At the time, the walls were half-painted and we had a desk in the middle of the floor in front of the large windows and two cheap Behringer B52 speaker monitors my interface ran to.
AroMa live, cast in the azure stage lights; press photo via the artist’s Bandcamp.
I think it makes sense that "Goldmine" was written in that energy—the start of something new, a big leap that I was putting my all into in order to take the next step of my art career, and the space we all believed would make that growth and evolution possible.
"I need you to be there, 'cause I am coming up shortly
The right place, the wrong time, is such an unoriginal story...
How could I perceive it to be an unoriginal story...
I could be a goldmine"These were the lyrics I wrote over the booming '80s-style drums that hit on the 1 and 4. It was my declaration that this was the beginning of things changing. It was my desperation to change and be changed. To be gold—and convicted in this difficult and sometimes demoralizing path of being an independent artist, which still feels like an uphill battle most days. But I know I have something special, something invaluable even.
AroMa basking in a coat d’or; “Goldmine” single artwork courtesy of the artists.