Ultra is out now!
Image: Supplied.
Australian musician, singer, songwriter and producer, Mickey Kojak has delivered his long-awaited debut album, Ultra. To celebrate the release, the musician is taking MILKY through the release, track by track!
"The majority of Ultra was written in the months after our first lockdown in 2020. I had just finished playing the best shows of my life and was inspired to write a whole bunch of energetic, live-focused electronic music so that when things went back to ‘normal', the band and I would be ready to shred across the country once more. Two years later... we finally get to play these tunes! ” he shares with MILKY.
To celebrate the release, Kojak is hitting the road on a national tour. Kicking off in Sydney on September 24, the run of shows will continue on to Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, Bondi, Albury, the Gold Coast and Yarra Valley for Shedfest, before wrapping up in Townsville on December 10. Tickets are on sale now!
ABOUT TIME
About Time sets the tone for the whole album and show. The goal for this song was to create something that yells “LET’S FUCKING GO!” Loud, fun, raucous and high energy.
LIGHTS OUT
When I was writing and recording Lights Out, I had a lot of old metal music in mind, particularly Slipknot’s first album. Heavy, aggressive guitar sounds and a dash of electronic drums and breaks. I wanted this song to feel like a strobe- infested sweaty mosh-pit.
The mission statement of this song is to push forward and keep fighting, even when things are exceptionally tough.
WHATEVER COMES NEXT
This track is a kind of sprawling acid-techno odyssey. Born from a tweaked-out acid bass machine, the squelchy synth grows in its madness along with lyrics and mayhem of the song.
Whatever Comes Next is about imposter syndrome. I feel very grateful to be in the position I am and to make music for a living but sometimes, when that ol’ brain is left to it’s own devices, it can go down every possible path of what could happen and what might happen next. Writing this song was a way of turning that shitty feeling on its head and making something fun and productive out of it.
CLUB IS ON FIRE
This track was born from a long thirst to party that has developed over the last two years of lockdown. I wanted to write a song that matched the energy, intensity and longing I wanted from a night out. As the music escalates, so do the stakes of the lyrics and the night out. We all know the feeling of hitting a wall, but when the club is on fire and you’re out with your friends and it’s been nearly 600 days since the world has resembled something even close to normal, what choice do you have? Ante up and dance till ya drop!
PRESSURE
This track is a nod to my life-long love of French electronic music. I’m talking Mr. Oizo, Suriusmo and Gessafelstein. There’s something so raw and volatile about the production that happens in this music and the feelings of angst and Pressure it can illicit. I’m very happy with how this one turned out.
PULL THE TRIGGER
I've always wanted to marry the hard, edgy sounds of early 2000's garage rock with fast-paced, high energy
electronic music. This is what I set out to do with Pull The Trigger The song is about a fiery and dangerous relationship, where the two parties are always on the brink of destruction. The inspiration originally came from an iconic scene in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas - where Karen wakes her mobster husband up with a gun in his face, in a desperate attempt to take power and her life back into her own hands
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This one is a quick interlude track to transport you into Take My Money. If anyone has ever watched an Instagram story of mine, they’ll see that I’m unhealthily obsessed with the 24 hour advertising channel and one host in particular, James Cheney. This is my version of a 30-second televangelist spot, trying to convert you to the cult of Kojak.
TAKE MY MONEY
Take My Money was written pre-lockdown but gained new relevance for me quickly. With no one being able to leave their homes, there was a huge surge of online shopping. Taking advantage of that, companies began advertising more and more. Buy buy buy! Fill the social void in your life with these useless things. This urgency to buy had moved from TV onto our phones. It became unavoidable. “Take My Money” is about the never ending cycle of buying to fill that void.
BROKEN
Most of the songs on Ultra are crazy, up-tempo electro bangers. As fun as all that is, I wanted to have a bit of contrast on the album. I set up a drum kit, a few synths, an old Casio keyboard from when I was a tiny tot, my bass, electric guitar and set out to have a mammoth one-man jam session. Once everything was hooked up, I laid down a real slinky, mellow drum beat and sequenced a simple bass line that I could shape and grow with the ebbs and flows of the track.
Broken is about all the emotions that have come along with being a musician and trying to subsist throughout the last two years of COVID. No gigs, no connecting with friends and peers, I felt lucky enough that I was even able to get into this is fine...
There is a meme that inspired a lot of the feelings and vibes that the song puts out as well:
Supplied by Mickey Kojak.
THE LAST THING
After the mania of the previous 35 minutes, it felt fitting to end the album on something a bit more quiet and introspective.
The track definitely has its big moment but for the most part, the focus stays on the lyrics and the feeling that something has been lost in the last two years that might not come back. While that’s a sad thought, it also means that you can finally move on.
Ultra is out now!