PRINCESS CENTURY

s u r r e n d e r, the third full-length record from Princess Century AKA Canadian musician and producer Maya Postepski, is a work committed to submersion rather than submission. In this instance, the titular word refers not to a white flag, but a surrendering of the self to everything around it.

Across the 11 tracks on s u r r e n d e r, Postepski navigates a zero-gravity abyss of pure, unbridled emotion: floating past scraps of former lives, rummaging through sparks of joy and pleasure alongside mires of pain and loneliness, reanimating heartbreak and survival via drums, synths, and thoughtfully-sung words. It’s rich and visceral, a ritual of healing via dance and sound, of finding oneself in a careful arrangement of frequencies. “It’s a feeling album, not a thinking album,” says Postepski.

Aside from feature-length film scoring and innumerable DJ gigs around the globe, Princess Century is where Postepski creates solo work, separate from both her history with Toronto electronic icons Austra and her ongoing work with Peaches and producer Robert Alfons in TR/ST. Surrender marks a new, bold vision and execution. Previous Princess Century releases have been mostly instrumental, but this time, Postepski is showcasing her own lyrics and vocal performances. The process has been at times nerve-wracking: “It’s like opening up my diary and saying, ‘Have a look, there’s a lot of weird shit in there,’” she laughs. But it’s better than the alternative. “I’ve always been hiding in the back behind a band or behind a singer,” she continues. “It’s my first step into a more vulnerable and exposed place, which I’m finally okay with for the first time in my adult life. I guess I stopped caring about being shy or being insecure, or hiding who I am. I don’t like to be in the limelight, but life is short and I guess I should share who I am eventually.” s u r r e n d e r was written between eastern Estonia, Morocco, and Berlin. Postepski did a two-month residency in Narva, a frozen town along the Russian border, before heading on to a tent in the Sahara with no internet for another month. Finally, she landed back in Berlin, where she became a resident at Riverside Studios, looking out in winter over the frozen Spree bisecting the city. Postepski recorded in her room at the studio, while Brazilian artist Julia Borelli engineered the record in her own space at Riverside.

The cumulative result of this far-flung work is a collection which oscillates between heartbroken, motorik pop grooves, hypnotic disco-synth voyages, sweat-drenched techno loops, and spaced-out electronic transmissions. Throughout, Postepski maintains an aesthetic of minimalism and repetition, drawing inspiration from the work of American composer Steve Reich alongside Roisin Murphy and saxophonist Jorja Chalmers. “It’s sort of this minimalistic, pattern-based music,” says Postepski. “I play drums and synths, so those are my worlds. I’m obsessed with finding these beautiful landscapes with synthesizers and drum machines.”

First single and opening track “Still The Same” announces this vision and intricacy with a throbbing synth that rebounds throughout the song while Postepski’s ethereal voice sets the board: “You’re still the same/But I need you now, I need you more again.” This is the central confusion of s u r r e n d e r, the greyish area Postepski is bathing in across the record: the potent mix of emotions when a relationship is ended, longing and frustration, hopelessness and desire. “It’s about the inescapable need to feel held and seen by the one you were closest to, but can no longer reach,” says Postepski, “then pretending it’s all fine by going out on the town in a desperate attempt for connection.” Second single “Desperate Love” is a dark piece of mid-tempo atmosphere, with Postepski’s voice radiating under a sputtering neon light. It’s a plea for connection and intimacy, and a simultaneous mourning of the loss of erotic passion. Third single “Stupid Things” follows on its heels in the tracklisting, a dreamy, dissociative slide from sadness to the dancefloor: “Text each other back about those stupid things I said/Gotta dance it away, gotta dance it away, gotta dance it away,” Postepski calls on the chorus. Paris synthpop artist Fragrance. features on a wistful, whispery verse and cooed backing vocals on the final chorus. “It has an optimistic and playful feeling, giving hopefulness in a shitty situation,” says Postepski. “All we can do to flush the feelings of shame away is to dance and turn off the phone.” s u r r e n d e r is a brave negation of the self amid crisis and volatility. Postepski suggests that to fully feel hurt and darkness isn’t just inevitable but in fact essential for us to be able to thrive. Armed with that conviction, she presents a record which orchestrates an intimate, danceable soundtrack to the infamous penultimate lines from Austrian writer Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, Go To The Limits Of Your Longing.

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

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Freshly Pressed PR
Julie Booth
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George Corona III
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