AUSTRA, LED BY VOCALIST AND PRODUCER KATIE STELMANIS, ANNOUNCES UPCOMING ALBUM, FUTURE POLITICS, OUT JANUARY 20 VIA PINK FIZZ RECORDS
WATCH AND SHARE VIDEO FOR “UTOPIA” HERE
PRE-ORDER FUTURE POLITICS : CD/LP / iTunes
Photo Credit: Renata Raksha
Austra, the recording project led by vocalist and producer Katie Stelmanis, is pleased to announce Future Politics, the third full length in their discography, due out January 20 via Pink Fizz Records.
Accompanying today’s announcement is a video for first single “Utopia”. Directed by THAT GO (Chairlift, Lapsley, Father John Misty), the video stars Stelmanis, held hostage in an icy, modern apartment by an insidiously sinister device.
"Katie came into the video project with a lot of ideas about the future,” says THAT GO. “We discussed everything from food trends to Star Trek: The Next Generation. The video is more near-future than distant-future, with recognizable technology and modern protein sources.”
WATCH AND SHARE VIDEO FOR “UTOPIA” HERE
STREAM “UTOPIA” HERE
Future Politics, Austra’s third and most ambitious album to date, calls for radical hope, “a commitment to replace the approaching dystopia,” says Katie Stelmanis, who leads Austra with the support of Maya Postepski (Princess Century, TR/ST), Dorian Wolf, and Ryan Wonsiak. “Not just hope in the future, but the idea that everyone is required to help write it, and the boundaries of what it can look like are both fascinating and endless. It’s not about ‘being political’, it’s about reaching beyond boundaries, in every single field.”
Future Politics is a collection of urgent, but disciplined anthems for dancefloor and headphones, asks each of us to remember that apocalypse is not an inevitability, but the product of human decision-making. It aims for a world without borders, where human compassion and curiosity drive technological innovation rather than profit, where the necessity of labor is replaced with time for creativity and personal growth, and the terror and destruction wrought by colonialism and white supremacy is recognized as a dark age in human history. The album is radicalism distilled: to galvanic beats, gorgeous, kinetic melodies, and the vulnerable majesty of Stelmanis’s voice.
Inspired by her time living in two cities – Montreal and Mexico City – and propelled by economic and philosophical texts she was reading throughout the album’s creation, Stelmanis was driven to face the world’s ailments with positivity, purpose, and engagement, rather than detachment or despair. Inspiration also came from European club culture – Objekt, Peter Van Hoesen, Lena Willikens, and ‘90s legends like Massive Attack; in all, artists who understand the dancefloor as a source of radical ideas and radical joy.
Change, Rebecca Solnit (author, activist, environmentalist and editor at Harper’s Magazine) writes, comes from “writers, scholars, public intellectuals, social activists, and participants in social media” – also “artists, club scenes, parties, teenagers, ghettos,” says Stelmanis. “Every single person’s idea about the future is valid and relevant, especially the freaks and the queers and the outsiders.”
Future Politics is available to pre-order now on limited edition deluxe coloured vinyl with exclusive signed art print, CD, and digital download.
PRE-ORDER FUTURE POLITICS : CD/LP / iTunes
Album art photography by Renata Raksha at Luis Barragan’s Cuadra San Cristobal in La Ciudad de Mexico.
FUTURE POLITICS TRACKLIST
01 We Were Alive
02 Future Politics
03 Utopia
04 I’m A Monster
05 I Love You More Than You Love Yourself
06 Angel In Your Eye
07 Freepower
08 Gaia
09 Beyond A Mortal
10 Deep Thought
11 43