Watch the 'Future Politics' video now

Watch the 'Future Politics' video now

Our current climate leaves many feeling apathetic but despair can act as a compass – the less you can ignore, the more you have to act.

Having previously shared the video for first single ‘Utopia‘, Austra are pleased to reveal the video for new track ‘Future Politics’, taken from the forthcoming album of the same name which is released January 20th on Domino.

Of the video, Austra’s Katie Stelmanis and the director Allie Avital say: "Future Politics is the breaking down of paradigms. In this video, we wanted to explore what a world might look like if our values were transformed: instead of glorifying labour, maybe we could learn to glorify the act of doing absolutely nothing."

Austra’s third LP is the Canadian band’s most ambitious record to date and 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. 

Additionally, Austra have confirmed full European tour dates for 2017 including London’s Convergence Festival.  All dates can be found below.

Future Politics is a collection of urgent, disciplined anthems for dancefloors and headphones alike, that 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 labour 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 as well as the likes of 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”. Stelmanis adds “artists, club scenes, parties, teenagers, ghettoes” to that list - “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 colored vinyl with exclusive signed art print, CD, and digital download.