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LAUREN AUDER

Whole World As Vigil
(untitled (recs))
Add date: 3.31.2026
Release date: 3.28.2026




Whole World As Vigil, the new album from Lauren Auder, opens with a proclamation.  “Let greed in,” Auder declares.  It’s an invitation to what can happen when you embrace life in all of its euphoria, desperation and endless possibility.  While 2023 debut the infinite spine explored Auder coming to terms with her own identity, here the world is showcased by another set of fresh eyes: inspired by a romantic relationship, the songs bottle up not only the electrifying sheen of being in love, but what it then forces you to examine and consider.  

While Auder’s prior music has often been informed by studio collaborations, here she deliberately pared back, working mostly on laptops alongside long-term creative partners dviance and Alex Parish between Paris and London.  Most tracks were initially recorded acapella as voice notes on walks around London before laying down any instrumentation. Sonically, Whole World As Vigil sits comfortably amongst contemporary art pop while sharing a spiritual connection with  the emo music of her childhood, a genre known for its “sheer intensity and immediacy and ability to treat one’s own personal turmoil and joy simultaneously.” There’s a physicality that has always been deeply embedded in Auder’s music, and this visceral emotion is in every corner of the new record: the tracks feel bigger, the production more bombastic and the overarching sentiment filled with greater urgency than ever.

Auder is adamant about “making music that is not passive,” and the songs on Whole World As Vigil embody that unrelenting spirit.  Although it  begins with “three of the biggest pop songs I’ve ever written,” they’re offset by idiosyncrasies such as a sample of an industrial drill Auder found on Tiktok in “praxis,” which is then wound around an exhilaratory chorus that feels revelatory.   Many production choices also reflect the rap and beatmaking influences where Auder got her start, with booming 808s propelling us throughout.  Ultimately, the collusion of all these sonic experimentations have resulted in the record that sounds the most unmistakably like Auder herself, putting to use all the experiments and styles explored on her previous releases.   Auder has always been interested in the archival nature of places and things, although as a society there’s often a constant penchant for newness.  This isn’t a fresh start, but a continuation of her work as a songwriter, an experience only deepened by taking it all in in the context of her catalog.  “You can feel all the fondness still held for those we have to abandon to memory,” Auder has previously stated, and the preservation of that feeling remains key to understanding her music. The fraught vulnerability of “no outline” was written after the dissolution of the relationship that informed much of Whole World As Vigil, but the rich orchestration of the song offers more than just a eulogy: it’s a celebration of both lessons learned and a perspective shifted.  The past will always touch us, if not consume us.  One of the centerpieces of the record, “candles” was written about a close friend whose illness invited Lauren to consider  different timelines, luck and the potential for holding and healing.  Auder might be half joking when she calls Whole World As Vigil “my EDM record,” but the web of contrasting soundscapes within the album often ring close to true catharsis.

“Vigil” in French, Auder’s second language, refers to  a guard or a watcher, and this bilingual connotation places even greater emphasis on the album’s title.  What will we do when we know the world is watching?  Auder wrote many of Whole World As Vigil’s lyrics as theses to live by.  The meaning of “praxis” itself (reiterated within the propulsive second track) is “the process of putting ideas, theories, or skills into practice or action.”  More than just succumbing to desire, it’s a manifestation that what we deserve is possible.  “Yes,” one of the purest love songs on the album, most directly gives way to this ecstasy in steadfast declarations, but Whole World As Vigil ultimately imagines what we can do once that’s embraced. The album’s two penultimate tracks offer us a clear statement of intent: “orchards” promising the potential for change, “say nothing“ the possibility that that change will be good.

Photo credit: Alice Schillaci