Austra releases new single + video “Siren Song”
Austra
Releases new single + video “Siren Song”
Announces 2026 North American + UK/EU Tour
Includes date at London’s Village Underground 23rd March
New album Chin Up Buttercup out November 14th via Domino
Austra, the pop project of Canadian vocalist and composer Katie Stelmanis, will release her fifth album Chin Up Buttercupon November 14th via Domino, and today she shares her majestic new single “Siren Song.” Co-written with Montreal songwriter, musician and DJ Patrick Holland, “Siren Song” is a dreamy trance-like plea for connection. “‘Siren Song’ exists somewhere at the intersection of ABBA, Ray of Light, The X-Files and Greek mythology,” says Stelmanis. “ABBA inspired the early songwriting with Patrick. The Siren introduced herself to me while I was improvising the demo recordings and I quickly realized that Orpheus would be our common nemesis. Following a recent X-Files binge, I was heavily inspired by Mulder’s desperate search for his sister. Ray of Light came in at the end as my co-producer Kieran Adams and I were establishing the sonic realm which would become the backdrop for our Siren to lament the loss of her lover to Orpheus and his pesky Lyre.” “Siren Song” comes via a video directed by Vanessa Magic:
Watch the “Siren Song” video here.
Stream “Siren Song” here.
Chin Up Buttercup features the previously released single “Math Equation,” which Stereogum named their #1 Best Song of the Week, writing, “The song is sonically bright but also full of empty space; it captures the sensation of being in an excited crowd and feeling completely alone. If Chin Up Buttercup is all similar heartbreak-inspired party anthems, count me in.”
Today Austra also announces her 2026 tour, featuring dates across North America and the EU and UK in January, February, and March. Tickets will be on artist pre-sale this Wednesday, October 8th; promoter pre-sale this Thursday, October 9th; and general pre-sale this Friday, October 10th, all at 10 AM local time. Tickets will be available at austra.fyi.
AUSTRA 2026 TOUR
1/9: Club Saw - Ottawa, ON
1/10: La Sala Rossa - Montreal, QC
1/11: Baby’s All Right - Brooklyn, NY
1/13: Beachland Ballroom & Tavern - Cleveland, OH
1/14: The Magic Bag - Ferndale, MI
1/16: Sleeping Village - Chicago, IL
1/17: 7th Street Entry - Minneapolis, MN
1/20: 29th Street Ballroom - Austin, TX
1/21: Club Dada - Dallas, TX
1/23: The Roxy Theatre - West Hollywood, CA
1/24: The Independent - San Francisco, CA
1/26: Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR
1/27: Madame Lou’s - Seattle, WA
1/29: The Fox Cabaret - Vancouver, BC
1/31: The Great Hall - Toronto, ON
2/6: Foro Indie Rocks - Cuauhtémoc, MX
2/7: C3 Rooftop - Guadalajara, MX
2/28: Sala Villanos - Madrid, ES
3/1: La Nau - Barcelona, ES
3/3: L’Epicerie Moderne - Fezyin (Lyon), FR
3/4: La Maroquinerie - Paris, FR
3/5: Le Grand Mix - Tourcoing, FR
3/7: Botanique - Rotonde - Brussels, BE
3/8: Mojo Club - Hamburg, DE
3/9: Hotel Cecil - Copenhagen, DK
3/10: Slatkyrkan - Stockholm, SE
3/12: Kesselhaus - Berlin, DE
3/13: Hydrozagadka - Warsaw, PL
3/14: Subzero - Prague, CZ
3/17: Technikum - Munich, DE
3/18: Club Bahnhof Ehrenfeld (CBE) - Köln, DE
3/19: Melkweg - Amsterdam, NL
3/21: Stereo - Glasgow, UK
3/22: The White Hotel - Salford, UK
3/23: Village Underground - London, UK
3/25: The Workman’s Club – Dublin, IE
3/26: Flux – Vienna, AT
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.” Louise Erdrich
“I’m so chaotic in love,” sings Katie Austra Stelmanis on “Amnesia,” the cinematic opening track of Chin Up Buttercup, the fifth album by her alter ego and longtime pop project Austra. You know Austra’s astonishing voice – singular and operatic, it betrays a fearlessness and sophistication. She’s the woman you’d be afraid to approach in a bar. Her voice draws you like a siren to the dance floor as the beats build toward the hypnotic chorus of “my life is not the same without you in my arms.” Listen closely and you’ll hear a vulnerability that sets this album apart from her earlier work. This is a grief album you can dance to.
Mournful lyrics about the opprobrium of heartache join euphoric, live-for-today euro-dance inspired synth melodies, a juxtaposition that says what we all know: contrasting emotions like anxiety and excitement, pleasure and pain, and jealousy and attraction can feel indistinguishable in your body. Who Stelmanis might be off stage – a composer, a studious introvert, suffering from an obsession with a romantic betrayal – is set free by embodying the protagonist of this invigorating album-length journey. She’s a force, demonic, an emotionally-driven chaos monster, and she’s going to lead you to surrender.
Heartbreak is both an ordinary humiliation and uniquely devastating. Stelmanis describes Chin Up Buttercup as a narrative about “the alienating feeling of being heartbroken in a world that’s awkward and inconvenienced by your pain.” Most of us act as though romantic grief is more of an embarrassment than a universal wound. Stelmanis decided to lean into the character of the psycho creep, consumed by longing instead of aspiring toward detachment. The result of embracing this dual personality is an album that coolly moves through the madness and eschews traditional healing arcs that bend toward self-improvement. By the final track we love this anti-hero; she is shining a light on our universal shame, making us laugh at our own abject desperation.
Chin Up Buttercup is available to pre-order on limited edition Neon Orange vinyl, standard Black vinyl, CD and digitally. LP formats come with a A2 double-sided poster; the CD comes with a 6-panel poster. Pre-order here: Dom Mart | Digital.
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