Austra is the long-running pop project of Canadian vocalist and composer Katie Stelmanis, whose music lives in the tension between euphoria and unease. Her operatic vocals slice through dark, shimmering synths, theatrical yet deeply human, like a new-wave Kate Bush on the verge of transcendence.
New single âSiren Songâ pulls you onto the dancefloor. Itâs trance-like and glimmering, all bubbling arpeggios and pulsing basslines, grounded by the kind of bittersweet melancholy Austra does best.
The track reimagines the myth of the siren mourning her lost lover, Orpheus, as pop lament. Stelmanis calls it âsomewhere at the intersection of ABBA, âRay Of Lightâ, âThe X-Filesâ and Greek mythologyâ, and sheâs right, itâs cosmic, a little melodramatic, and entirely sincere.
The video sinks her underwater, literally, where she moves through a haze of bubbles, searching for something unreachable. Co-produced with Kieran Adams (Diana, The Weather Station), âSiren Songâ feels like the work of an artist comfortable in her contradictions, devotional and detached, melancholic and ecstatic all at once.
đ§ Watch the video for âSiren Songâ below