- Words Notion Staff
KOTA! releases their new single, ‘Eyes Wide Open’, and share the backstory behind the long-awaited album.KOTA! releases their new single, ‘Eyes Wide Open’, and share the backstory behind the long-awaited album.
KOTA! has released her debut album, KOTA!, with the rock-pop banger ‘Eyes Wide Open’ serving as the lead single from the LP.
The album has all the makings of a sleeper hit, with its searing, searching, genre-defying sound chiming perfectly with KOTA!’s constantly changing visual aesthetic (in her looks, the artist veers between girliness and grunginess – stubbornly refusing to meet anyone’s expectations of what she should be).
With ‘Eyes Wide Open’ continuing to gain traction, we thought it worth looking at how KOTA!, the album, was conceived. The artist has said that ideas for the album started to take form in 2023. She said on social media that she “had no idea what she was getting herself into!” but that she was inspired by being at the iconic Rockfield Studios, in a rural farm in Wales, as part of the esteemed Pro7ect Music Songwriting Camp.
In this studio, working with some of the best producers and songwriters that recording artists could possibly ask for, the album’s lead single, ‘Eyes Wide Open’, was born. KOTA! said: “Sitting in that room, just feet away from *the* wonderwall Oasis sings about, genuinely changed me in so many ways. my confidence had fallen, my health was shaky, and I felt lost and resistant.” She said that with the help of writers and artists like Lisa Fitzgibbon, Alex Stacey, Jon Fletcher, Colin Gordon, and Paul Hopton, “I found a voice I didn’t know I had. That night, I cried til 3am, purging emotions so deep down it felt like an ego death. My lungs hurt and my body was tired, but the next day’s session…somehow brought even MORE emotions. Sitting at the piano Freddy Mercury wrote on, on the last day of camp, everything felt surreal and all I wanted was to live in that moment forever.”
If her time at Rockfield Studios served as the initial spark, then a roaring fire helped to bring her full, 10-song debut album into being. KOTA!, the album, is about wrestling with the difficult emotions and the difficult experiences that define our lives. While it stays away from strictly definable genres, the album is consistent in its empowering riffs and KOTA!’s edgy yet melodic rock voice. It’s an album that speaks to those who don’t know what they’re doing in life but who have a relentless, nebulous energy anyway. It’s an album that sees KOTA! reaching out into the void for other people just like herself.
If you haven’t yet listened, buckle up and do yourself a favor. Stream her new album now.
‘Eyes Wide Open’ was released on January 23rd, on the same day as she released her self-titled debut album. You can stream KOTA!’s songs here.