Wednesday 18 May 2011



Beat and the pulse

QBiM SPiNS The Austa's Feel It Break

Although their respective genres couldn’t be further apart, I’ve been envisioning today’s review of Feel It Break by Austra as a companion piece to yesterday’s post about One Hundred Dollars.  Both bands bring afresh and modern approach to an established and familiar style of music, and both have surpassed any expectations I may have had about them.

Austa’s de facto leader, Katie Stelmanis, is no stranger to the Canadian music scene; she appeared on Fucked Up’s The Chemistry of Common Life, has been a member of the band Galaxy and released singles and music under her own name, too. Now, with drummer Maya Postepski and bassist Dorian Wolf, Stelmais seems to have found a niche where both her classically trained operatic voice and love of dark, gothic electronic music can coexist beautifully.  Feel It Break seethes with a shadowy sexuality and passion reminiscent of prime Depeche Mode and Siouxsie Sioux.  “The Pulse and the Beat” deliciously warps time and space, transporting me to an alternate universe where The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson sings lead on Violator.  On paper, the return to new wave electronic dance music sounds a bit clichéd and been-there-done-that, and shouldn’t work as magnificently as it does, but Austra, like One Hundred Dollars, approach their music by working from the roots up.  It’s an exercise in hair-splitting, and repeats the sentiments I wrote in yesterday’s post, but Feel It Break is a record of classic late 80s/early 90s electro-pop that is informed by our times, rather than the other way around.  And in doing so, Austra have created a record that bristles with excitement, sounds fresh and new and recognizable all at once.

Feel It Break is available from Paper Bag Records as of yesterday, May 17.  Buy it here.

MP3: Austra “Lose It”
MP3: Austra “The Beat and the Pulse”
Facebook: Austra
Twitter: Austra





by J. Di Gioia | No Comments »

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 at 8:35 am and is filed under MP3, QBiM SPiNS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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