AURA NOIR - Dreams Like Deserts 30th anniversary MCD

“July 1995. For some reason, Shagrath from Dimmu Borgir, who at the time worked at a record-store called Hot Records in the middle of Oslo, wanted to release Aura Noir. He must have heard us while we were rehearsing in Skippergata, or he simply admired our ugly looks. He offered two fistfuls of Norwegian dollars, and since we were thirsty we accepted it. We then brought along our friend Kai Halvorsen who had the keys to a studio that was unoccupied at the time. We basically snuck us in there, while no-one was watching, in the middle of the night. After 6 hours we were finished recording and mixing the album. After the recording we took the beer and cigarettes we bought for the money and brought along Aldrahn from Dødheimsgard to the Northern Graveyard near Sagene in Oslo to take the photos for the cover artwork. We gave him a beer and two cigarettes. He also created our first logo by tilting the letters from the Celtic Frost logo sideways. We gave him another beer and a cigarette for this. Lastly, we wanted some ugly handwriting on the back cover, for this task we recruited Garm from Ulver since our own handwritings are totally unreadable, Garm was not old enough to drink alcohol, so we only gave him two cigarettes for the job. The release caused a lot of fuss locally in Norway, praised by the scene. However, black metal novices and the rest of the world thought we didn’t wear enough make up and that our music was «too thrashy»”. - Aura Noir

Norway’s Aura Noir was formed in 1993 by Aggressor and Apollyon in pursuit of a more thrash-based form of black metal than much of what was coming out at the time - particularly in their homeland - citing bands such as Slayer, Sodom and Kreator as inspirations along with purveyors of the scene such as Venom, for a dirtier, stripped down, violent black/thrash metal sound. Their first official release was the ‘Dreams Like Deserts’ EP on Hot Records in 1994.

‘Dreams Like Deserts’ was a fresh revelation upon release, launching the band amid the fever of the second wave of black metal sweeping the globe at the time. The result was a ferocious assault of dirty blackened thrash, immediately gaining Aura Noir cult acclaim in the process, which has continued to this day.

This 30th anniversary edition of Dreams Like Deserts is presented on CD format, with the original cover artwork and layout from the 1995 release. Also features audio which had previously been re-mastered at Strype studios in Oslo.

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