PΕneke singer-songwriter Julia Belle has released ‘Aurora’, an atmospheric indie-pop track that digs into longing, nostalgia and the stories we tell ourselves about people we’re not ready to let go of. It’s out now, and it’s the first single from her upcoming sophomore EP.
The track moves her sound into bigger, more cinematic territory than 2025 debut EP Dreamland’s folk-pop foundations, though the confessional, up-close songwriting that anchors her work hasn’t gone anywhere.
The idea for ‘Aurora’ came from an odd night in with an ex, the two of them working through Pink Floyd’s catalogue. Julia brought up the aurora at one point, and he told her it doesn’t happen this far south, before cueing up The Dark Side of the Moon. That exchange stuck with her, and it became the jumping-off point for a song built around memory, escapism, and the habit of romanticising someone long after they’ve gone. It’s a song caught between what’s real and the version of that person you keep in your head, aware it’s over but still drawn back to it. Pink Floyd nods turn up throughout the finished track.
On the track, Julia says:
“‘Aurora’ is about missing old lovers while knowing you have to leave them behind, and realising you might have to leave parts of yourself behind too. It’s that feeling of looking around and wondering, what am I doing here? Am I wasting my life away? It’s nostalgic, messy, and marks the start of a new chapter for me.”
The same themes she’s built her name on are all over ‘Aurora’ too: heartbreak, nostalgia, not fitting in, drifting off into your own head to escape, that particular ache of putting on a brave face when you’re really not fine.
Dreamland, Julia’s debut EP, arrived in April 2025 and was praised by New Zealand media as “one of our country’s strongest independent releases in years.” She’s also stayed active within Wellington’s music scene: she co-wrote and appears on ‘Narcissist’, a 2025 single from fellow Wellington artist Danica Bryant.
She’ll celebrate in person too, playing a support slot for Floyd Marsden’s Good Times show at The Undercurrent in Wellington the same night, Friday 25 September.
‘Aurora’ keeps the folk-pop DNA that built her audience, while pointing towards a next chapter that sounds noticeably bigger and further from home.
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