“When you know the one you’re with is bad for you but you’re too scared to quit.
You say: ‘I love you, I don’t want to lose you…’
And they wear their crown of shit, upon their liar's chair, while leeching off your devotion.”
(Austra, 2020)
Katie Austra Stelmanis has been better known by her middle name for three albums, ten years, and countless tours. She wrote, produced, and performed all her own records, occasionally sharing the spotlight with a band to tour live. From the outside, things were going really well for a while: she built a devoted fan base and sold out shows all around the world. However, on the inside, Stelmanis was beginning to feel stagnant and uninspired. “I was losing faith in my own ideas,” she explains. Without realising it, she’d got caught up in a toxic relationship that was tearing her apart.
It wasn’t until Stelmanis was ready to face her insecurities that she was able to see a way forward: “My creative and personal relationships were heavily intertwined, and I knew the only answer was to part ways with all of the people and comforts that I’d known for the better part of a decade and start again.” Alongside making changes in her personal life, starting again also meant taking an entirely different approach to making a record. New single “Risk It” is her first new music since 2017 and marks a new chapter for Austra.
Innovative electro ensemble Austra put on quite a show when a few friends and I want along to see them perform.
All of us were hugely impressed by classically trained Stelmanis’ soft yet piercing voice, and although we didn’t know very many of their songs, we found that it was all to easy to bob and groove along to the vast majority of the songs that the band played.
The sombre tone that her vocals strike gives rise to an effective sense of tension between her voice and the upbeat synth driven instrumental parts of their tracks. The exaggerated build up of ‘What We Done?’ was a great way to open proceedings, but their most popular song to date, ‘Lose It’ was definitely the track that was best received by the audience. Austra’s 2013 album ‘Olympia’ is certainly worth a listen, and if you can get to one of their shows any time soon I would definitely recommend it! The band’s subtle and infectious sounds make for a great evening out!
samseyes
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