“I wanted to make classical music with really fucked up, distorted crazy shit on there.”
While Austra’s Feel It Break doesn’t quite sound like Rachmaninoff meets Death From Above 1979 (perhaps more along the lines of Schoenberg meets Nine Inch Nails), it certainly is a testament to the well-honed musicality of lead singer Katie Stelmanis. She might not have an affinity towards major keys, but her ability to push the boundaries in the minor realm allows the band to design an entire universe of dark, enigmatic layers of electronic and acoustic sounds. Mixed by Damian Taylor (Bjork, The Prodigy, UNKLE), the album is a journey through shimmering textures and beautifully haunting vocals, dark polyphonic synth lines and driving pulses.
Classically trained in the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus, but not thrilled by the prospect of leaving Toronto to study voice, Stelmanis decided to skip college and explore production and electronic music. Influences from artists like Nine In Nails, Bjork, and the Knife set her a path to creating the music she and drummer Maya Postepski and bassist Dorian Wolf create today.
Besides the difficulties of breaking out in a genre in a country that was less than receptive to their genre, Austra is challenged with the potential for being pidgeon-holed as a “gay” band. Though Stelmanis mentioned that “All I ever wanted was to be a gay band” in an interview with After Ellen (she and Postepski are openly queer), Austra seems to have avoided that stereotype – perhaps due to the type of music they make or because of Stelmanis’s assertion that “I am a musician first, and a lesbian second”.
Touching on that point, I’ve been a fan of Austra for a few months and only found out yesterday that some of the members were queer. Perhaps it had something to do with this:
(watch the full video here)
Currently, Austra is in the midst of an international tour, headed to San Francisco on Saturday, 11/12. Let’s all go be taken over by some dark, pulsating, hypnotic sounds.
The more you ask me, the more I’ve heard.
This is a thirst that I’ve never had,
I’ve never bled for another man.
