Austra encourages listeners to imagine new, bolder futures – San Francisco Chronicle

Three years ago, when Katie Stelmanis started writing Future Politics her third studio album with her band Austra she had no way of knowing that one day soon Donald Trump would be president of the United States, and that, for many people, the future would feel very bleak.

She also couldnt have known that the album would eventually drop on the very day Trump was inaugurated. And yet, the timing feels exactly right.

Future Politics, with its references to utopias, new paths forward, Gaia and love, seems like a message in direct opposition to the hopelessness of the current political moment. Its definitely hard to feel optimistic, said Stelmanis. But shes hoping the album will push people to make their own way in the darkness, to help write a better future.

Its been nearly four years since the Toronto band has put out a full-length album, but Stelmanis piercing voice (she was classically trained from a young age) and the chilly, pared-down beats that underlie them, sound as familiar as ever. Its a sound that Stelmanis and her bandmates Maya Postepski, Dorian Wolf and Ryan Wonsiak plan to bring to the Mezzanine on Saturday, Feb. 11.

Future Politics is far and away Stelmanis most complete and holistic project yet. Thats partly a result of her taking the time to reset and charge after Austras 2013 sophomore album, Olympia, she said. I needed to direct my energy on something that wasnt music-related and wasnt personal.

Austras third studio album is called Future Politics.

Austras third studio album is called Future Politics.

So, she started reading. She sped through books about disaster capitalism and neoliberalism, books by Rebecca Solnit and Adrienne Rich, books by queer women writers who had imagined bold and better futures. She inhaled them and then started imagining her own future.

Before long, there was no separating all of that from the music she began to write. Rather than painting a picture of what the world could be in the lyrics, she worked to remind people that they can help shape it, even if it sometimes feels impossible. Im mostly interested in the discussion, she said, as opposed to any single answer or vision.

For all the criticism members of the Millennial generation get about being apathetic, Stelmanis said she sees them as constant fighters. Its all about resistance. Its always about resisting evil. Eventually, though, if its all fight and nothing to look forward to, people get tired. I dont think theres any or enough discussion about what comes next.

This sentiment is all over the album. I can picture a place where everybody feels it too/ It might be fiction but I see it ahead, Stelmanis sings on the first single, Utopia.

And then theres the title track. I look ahead and I think about it/ Theres still a hole somebody needs to fill./ I dont want to hear that its all my fault/ The system wont help you when your money runs out./ Realities beating, a grave has been dug,/ Im looking for something to rise up above.

Part of what makes the album so cohesive was a commitment on Stelmanis part to write all the lyrics. In the past, she said, others had done a good chunk of the writing. I felt like I had kind of lost something. I had given up a part of the song, she said.

Stelmanis also mixed the album herself, along with her girlfriend at the time. The learning process was steep, but it resulted in a clarity around her voice she hadnt managed in previous albums.

Future Politics creates a new future in its own, subtle way all production credits went to women. That might seem small to those who arent familiar with just how difficult it is for women to break into a male-dominated music industry, Stelmanis said, but I cant really think of any other record that has that credit.

A few days before Future Politics was set to be released before the 45th president of the United States was inaugurated Stelmanis didnt sound hopeful, exactly. But she did sound resolute. Even if there were no easy answers for creating that utopia she sings about, the first step, she said, is letting yourself envision one.

You just need to keep imagining, she said. Dont let them kill the imagination.

Ryan Kost is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rkost@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @RyanKost

Austra: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11. $20. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie St., S.F. http://mezzaninesf.com

To listen to Utopia: https://youtu.be/7rzmhbiKUo0

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Austra encourages listeners to imagine new, bolder futures - San Francisco Chronicle