Press launch –
ASTRA writes from the uncomfortable areas most songwriters keep away from, those the place softness and rage occupy the identical breath. The Indo-Canadian singer-songwriter, born and raised in Ajax, Ontario and now primarily based in Barrie, confronts that rigidity head-on with “IDGAF,” out now, the one that refuses to let an abusive relationship have the final phrase.
ASTRA wrote “IDGAF” roughly a month after ending a four-year relationship, with the anger nonetheless instant and fully unapologetic. “I wasn’t all in favour of writing a standard breakup music about unhappiness, longing or closure as a result of there was no longing or unhappiness,” she explains. “Simply pure indignance.” Reasonably than asking for sympathy, the music claims floor. It captures the precise second attachment will get changed by defiance, when somebody who as soon as held monumental affect over your life immediately doesn’t anymore, and turns that second right into a declaration.
The lyrics sharpen that emotional pivot by exposing the sort of manipulation and revisionism that usually follows abusive relationships. ASTRA opens with biting sarcasm, inviting her former associate to rewrite historical past: “Inform them that you simply by no means spoke to me out of identify… inform them… sure, the way you at all times made me really feel secure.” However the music’s emotional centre arrives in its defiant refrain: “Cross my coronary heart / Let me drown / Inform them no matter you need now / I don’t give a f**ok, cry about how I allow you to down.” Reasonably than defending herself, she refuses to take part within the narrative anymore, turning silence into power and reclaiming the ultimate phrase.
Produced by Kayla Diamond, the observe pushes into ASTRA’s most aggressive territory but, pairing post-grunge grit with darkish, heavy manufacturing that refuses to melt on anybody’s behalf. There is no such thing as a tidy decision right here, no try and make the anger extra presentable. That’s the level. ASTRA lets the resentment and launch behind the music keep uncooked and unresolved, giving voice to a sense lots of people are advised to swallow as an alternative.
That refusal to shrink runs by means of ASTRA’s complete creative id. Her voice has been described as weak but fiercely commanding, smoky and intimate one second, edged with ferocity the following, reducing by means of melodies constructed on rigidity and unrest. Her guiding mantra, “our rage is a legacy of damaged bones,” speaks to the cyclical nature of abuse and the methods violence in opposition to girls has grow to be normalized, minimized and carried throughout generations. Whereas rooted in ASTRA’s personal cultural expertise, that inherited rage extends past it, talking to girls who acknowledge the implications of what generations earlier than them had been anticipated to endure, and accomplish that with grace. The thought is accomplished in her upcoming single “Sanskar”: “Our rage is a legacy of damaged bones / from the stones they nonetheless throw at me.”
“IDGAF” follows ASTRA’s earlier observe “The Twenty Eighth Day” and serves because the lead single from her forthcoming album, ‘Kitty Envy.’ Each songs draw from lived expertise and generational reminiscence, and collectively they set up ASTRA as an artist prepared to say what others are nonetheless working up the braveness to say out loud. Her music exists within the house between energy and vulnerability, and he or she is utilizing that house handy her viewers permission to take their very own energy again.
With “IDGAF,” ASTRA doesn’t ask to be believed. She insists on it, and in doing so, provides a voice to anybody who has ever wanted one.
ASTRA’s fearless new single “IDGAF,” from her forthcoming album ‘Kitty Envy,’ turns the tip of an abusive relationship into an unapologetic declaration of energy.
