Austra's Katie Stelmanis on Future Politics
The Skinny caught up with Katie Stelmanis, frontwoman and driving force of Austra, at the end of last year to find out about the inspirations for third album Future Politics and to talk about life in a Utopian world
Canadian-born Katie Stelmanis is a classically trained musician who has been performing from a young age, including as a member of the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus at the age of 10. Since then she’s gone on to work with the likes of Fucked Up and Death in Vegas, and in 2009 founded electronic project Austra (taking its title from Stelmanis’ middle name).
In 2011 Austra released debut album Feel It Break which went on to be shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize – the Canadian equivalent of the UK's Mercury Prize – an award that would eventually be won by Arcade Fire for their third effort, The Suburbs. Three albums in now, and six years down the line, we ask how Austra has changed over the years? “I feel like Austra is a constantly evolving thing – it evolves a lot more than other bands do,” explains Stelmanis.
“Future Politics is definitely more similar to how I wrote Feel It Break for sure. I felt like I did give up a lot of creative control with the band's last record [2013's Olympia], which is what happens when you collaborate with people,” Stelmanis tells us. “I guess I was feeling like I wanted to get that back, and so this record was good because I definitely did most of it by myself. I was so involved with every single aspect of it that I feel ready and excited to collaborate again – I feel like I’ll be better at it or I’ll just be more confident in what I can do.”
On politics and utopia
Politics were at the heart of 2016, with Britain deciding to leave the EU and the American presidential race taking centre-stage in newsfeeds around the world. Future Politics was released on 20 Jan 2017, which just happened to coincide with the date Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America. “It’s obviously an extremely dark and terrifying time for all of us,” Stelmanis says with a quiver in her voice. “I definitely – when I started writing the record – did not even fathom that we would be in a position of dealing with a Trump presidency and with Brexit, so that really wasn’t what the record was about, it’s just taken on this new meaning.
“The original intention with the concept of Future Politics was about encouraging people to constantly be imagining a new future because I think the greatest form of oppression is making people believe there are no other options,” enthuses Stelmanis. “I think as long as people are aware there are other options and are able to think about them and imagine them and spread ideas then I think that these forms of oppression are a lot weaker."
One of the stand-out tracks on the album is the upbeat and uplifting Utopia – ‘I can picture a place where everybody feels it too / It might be fiction but I see it ahead / There’s nothing I wouldn’t do’ – so we ask Stelmanis what her true idea of a utopian world would be? “I don’t really have a specific vision of Utopia because I think it’s something that will constantly evolve and will be different for everybody.”
Stelmanis explains: “I think it’s impossible for a Utopia to actually exist, but I constantly think about what it might look like. I imagine a world that’s based on sustainability instead of profit where we value things that as of now capitalism doesn’t. A world without oppression – things that we all sort of hope and wish for.”
In a recent press release on the topic of Future Politics, one line really stood out: ‘the less you can ignore, the more you have to act.’ So what does Stelmanis think we should be doing with the state of the current political climate? “I think that is something a lot of people are grappling with – trying to figure out the best way to act,” Stelmanis firmly responds. “I was recently reading this book by the guy who started the Occupy Wall Street movement [Micah White] – The End of Protest – and basically the whole thing in the book is that protest doesn’t work anymore.
“It’s obsolete because it’s an expected component of our current society so it’s not subversive. I don’t necessarily agree with that but then he goes on to say that the best way to act is to join the system,” Stelmanis continues. “I think our generation, specifically millennials, is not really involved in government or in those processes and I don’t think ever really consider joining those ranks and that’s maybe something to rethink.”
Environmentalism, and retrofuturism
Other inspiration for Future Politics came from “reading a lot about the environment,” Stelmanis explains. “I pretty much realised that capitalism, or our current way of governing is just absolutely impossible to solve our world problems. If we want to decolonise North America, you need a completely different system so when I was thinking of Future Politics I was thinking about creating an entirely new system that doesn’t exist yet, and you know…” She laughs, before concluding that it’s “super easy..." with some sarcasm.
“I just think that it’s really liberating to step back and realise just how many of the paradigms we’re guided by are totally fake and not real and not important,” she continues. “Once you start tearing those down the world becomes this endless possibility. Like Buffy Sainte-Marie – she’s a Canadian folk artist from the 60s and 70s and she’s still making music now – she’s quoted saying something along the lines of ‘money is just this weird blip in humanity that we’ll look upon in 5000 years and be like, that was weird… when we had that,' so it’s interesting to think about how many of the things we take for granted that are just fabricated in order to keep people in power.”
Aside from politics, what is quite telling from the striking artwork and music videos that have so far accompanied the record is that art was as much a part of Future Politics. Stelmanis excitedly agrees: “I think this record is for me the most heavily conceptualised record I’ve ever done. In the past I’d just make music and then later on try and figure out what it’s about; figure out a theme or how to represent it visually, but this album, all the art, the visuals, the lyrics, the concept, it all was birthed at the same time.
“I was really influenced by a lot of retrofuturism stuff and a lot of really early Technicolor films,” Stelmanis recalls. “I was watching a lot of Stanley Kubrick stuff, and I loved Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. I had thousands of images in this little folder that I’ve been using; everything has been really colourful. Mexico as well was hugely influential – I don’t know if you’ve ever been there? All the buildings are pink and blue and purple, it’s the most colourful, amazing place.”
When it came time to make the album art and imagery that would accompany Future Politics, Stelmanis had two years worth of references that she was able to give photographer and cinematographer, Renata Raksha, who she was eager to work with. “She’s this crazy Russian lady who lives in LA – she’s so good,” Stelmanis enthuses. “We ended up coming up with this concept that felt like it represented the project really well. Art was always not as important to me and with this one [album], it really was.”
Stelmanis is set to tour Future Politics for the next couple of years with her band (consisting of Maya Postepski, Dorian Wolf and Ryan Wonsiak) and she seems excited about three main objectives: to "rework the songs to make them really work with the band," to "try and do as much live stuff as possible," and to make the live show "really feel like it’s its own thing." When asked about her thoughts on real life future politics, however, her response isn't quite as upbeat.
"I have absolutely no idea how things are going to fare politics-wise. The distinguishing factor of the situation that we’re in is that we’re just living in a time of complete uncertainty; nobody has any idea what’s happening and that’s why it’s scary. I don’t know. Every day something new and crazy happens, so it’s impossible to guess."
Future Politics is out now. Austra plays Summerhall, Edinburgh, 23 Mar; The Deaf Institute, Manchester, 24 Mar.