Austra Finds Euphoria in Heartbreak on New Album Chin Up Buttercup
Austra. Photo credit: Lamia Karic.
“I didn’t want it to be a depressing breakup record,” says Katie Stelmanis, also known as her moniker Austra, speaking from her home in Toronto. “I wanted it to have this element of euphoria. I don’t want to pretend that everything happens for a reason. I think things are hard and they can suck, and you just live with that for a long time.”
That tension between heartbreak and transcendence sits at the heart of Chin Up Buttercup, the fifth album from Austra, Stelmanis’ long-running electronic pop project. It’s been five years since her last LP, HiRUDiN, arrived in the strange stillness of spring 2020, an era when artists released records into the digital void. “It really felt like it just went into the ether,” she admits. “There was no tour, no audience reaction, so whenever people say they listened to that record during the pandemic, I’m like, wow, cool. It’s nice to know it meant something to someone.”
With Chin Up Buttercup, Stelmanis wanted to reconnect with herself, with her listeners, and with the messy emotions that follow love’s collapse. Written after the sudden end of a long-term relationship, the record brims with swelling synths and hypnotic melodies. Austra treats despair as the muse and music is a bandage that’s eventually ripped off to reveal it all as the album unfolds. It’s an ode to feeling everything all at once.
“The record really came out of a need to just put the feelings somewhere,” she explains. “I started this Google doc that became over a hundred pages long. It wasn’t meant to be lyrics, it was just me spewing thoughts whenever I needed to. I could only bug my friends so much about it, so it became this place to dump everything. Most of it’s unreadable,” she laughs, “but some pieces turned into songs.”
That emotional sprawl found shape with co-producer Kieran Adams (Diana, The Weather Station). The pair built the album around live energy, with Stelmanis imagining the physicality of performing again after years of isolation. “Playing live always feels vulnerable,” she says. “It’s such a weird thing, standing on stage in front of a crowd. You have to let yourself go a bit, become this larger-than-life character. But I made this record with that in mind and I think these songs will work really well live.”
Despite the intimacy of its origins, Chin Up Buttercup isn’t wallowing. Instead, it channels the radiant, club-ready pulse of late-’90s Eurodance — particularly Madonna’s Ray of Light, a touchstone that emerged late in production. “My partner played it for me and said, ‘You should make your record sound like this,’” Stelmanis recalls. “I hadn’t listened to it in so long, and when I did, I realised it was made with the same gear we were using — a Juno 106, a Korg MS-20. It became a North Star for the final details, like what kind of snare or vocal delay to use. Those tiny choices can really change everything.”
That shimmering influence shines brightest on tracks like “Siren Song”, co-produced with Montreal’s Patrick Holland, whose fluid electronic sensibility complements Stelmanis’ operatic vocals. “I think I just cold-reached out to him,” she says. “Before this record, I’d been living in London, and what I loved about that scene was how collaborative it was. People were constantly doing sessions, giving feedback, having round-tables about each other’s music. When I came back to Toronto, I wanted to recreate that energy.”
That sense of community extends through the album’s collaborators — including art-pop eccentric Sean Nicholas Savage, producer Luis Sanchez (Pantayo), and multi-disciplinary artist Tess Roby. “When artists send me their records for feedback, I don’t just say ‘sounds great’ anymore. I’ll write a seven-page document about what I think, because that’s what I want from others too. We all need that exchange,” Stelmanis says.
Stelmanis has spent nearly two decades carving out space in a music industry that has grown increasingly precarious. “When I first started releasing records as Austra, I reached a point where I could make a living from music and that was so exciting,” she reflects. “But that income has stayed the same ever since and everything else has gotten more expensive. It’s the same across creative fields. I honestly don’t know if it’s viable anymore. This album feels like a test and we’ll see what happens.”
Still, there’s an underlying resilience to her voice that’s fuelled by both realism and hope. In the midst of uncertainty, she’s focusing on connection: a release-day DJ party at Toronto’s late-night salon-venue Juice, followed by a full tour in January. “I just needed to do something to celebrate,” she says, smiling. For an artist long associated with the grandeur of electronic melancholy, Chin Up Buttercup feels like a reclamation of joy, not the kind that erases sorrow, but one that coexists with it. “It’s less about redemption,” Stelmanis says. “I think it's more about accessing hard emotions in a way that actually feels good. It feels pleasurable to delve into these kind of uncomfortable feelings.”
