Interview: Ultra_eko Discusses His New Video "Alexandre Cazes" and Debut Album "Off the Grid"
Congratulations on the completion and release of your debut album, ‘Off the Grid’; what does the album title represent to you?
The title ‘Off the Grid’ works on several levels in terms of its meaning. On a personal level it is perhaps an apt description of the way in which I have lived my life. As I write in the track ‘My Life’,
‘Never sure about myself,
Only knew I had to leave a beaten path
Get away from the herd
Without a destination
Wander off
On many tangents
Twist, turn
Lose the mainstream’
That pretty much sums things up for me. There has never been a plan as such, in terms of career. Instead I have always let myself be carried ‘by that great wind’, by the power of my faith, by my strong conviction that it has all already been written.
I have always had a deeply held innate faith and belief in a higher power, or powers, although I have no interest in organised religion, as I believe we each have a personal relationship with the divine. The older I have got though, the more experience I have gathered, the more I have the sense that we have little conscious control over what happens to us. Books like Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, and Nassim Nicolas Taleb’s ‘The Black Swan’ have illustrated to me how little we really have to do with what happens to us, and the choices that we do make usually take place long before they reach conscious awareness.
Having said that, it’s not to say that I think we have no free will. Perhaps some of the most spiritually enlightening works I have ever read are Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan series. Whether they are fictional or not, I found deep truths within them. Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian Sorcerer within the books, speaks of the power of intent. In many ways it is similar to the idea of ‘the force’ in ‘Star Wars’; I believe in the idea of an infinite and universal consciousness from which all creation is brought into being.
As our tripping protagonist in my ‘Yellow Redux’ track states;
‘This illusion of us being individuals
Is like a wave breaking on the ocean’s surface,
Just a brief moment of separation where
You form a shape of your own
Before returning to the source to reform’
We, and all of creation, have arisen from a universal source; ‘God’, as some prefer to call it. And the power of intent, is about finding a strong, highly focused connection to this source. It is about visualizing and being very clear about what you want and where you want to go, and holding this idea of image very firmly within your mind, having the utmost faith and belief in it, and silently willing it into being; manifesting it.
It’s not an original idea, and it may be all self-delusionary, but it is a core principle by which I live. Perhaps every eventuality is played out in infinite parallel dimensions, and the power of our intent is what guides us and our consciousness into one outcome over another. Further to this, I believe you must try your best to stay pure in heart and intent in order to manifest the best results. By this I mean, don’t deceive others, don’t allow yourself to be overcome by negative and poisonous emotions, such as jealousy, envy, greed. Don’t concern yourself with how others are doing in comparison; that is a path to unhappiness. Remain focused on your own path, hold firm to the idea and vision of what you want and where you want to be, be open in heart, generous with your emotions; allow yourself to radiate a positive energy to those around you, and good things will come.
As JFK said something along the lines of, don’t ask what others can do for you, but what you can do for others. Of course all of this is easier said than done; but the struggle, the journey, is what it is all about; life is what is happening to you now and in the present, so try to live it to your core principles as best you can, and keep trying to grow and learn.
As I write in the ‘Pissing in the Wind’ track,
‘You see this is it,
The past will always be gone,
And the future will always be yet to come,
So this moment is all we have and own,
And it must be thanked for like a gift I guess’
I try my best to always remain humble; every person you come across has something to teach, some knowledge to impart from the life they have lived. I am not here to preach or to teach, that is not in my character; instead I try to learn, to absorb as much as I can. And then, to reflect back out what I have learnt through my writing and the music; I only hope to be a storyteller, holding up a mirror to the world.
Anyway, I’ve gone off on a tangent there. But getting back to the question, ‘Off the Grid’ is an apt description of how I have lived, not following where others walk, or have tried to lead me; it hasn’t always worked out for the best; but at least I own the narrative of my life; it wasn’t written by someone else. I have put my trust in the power of my intent, in the direction taken by my higher self, or unconscious, and I have let myself be ‘carried by that great wind’, holding tightly, buoyed along by faith and hope for the best!
On a separate note, ‘Off the Grid’ can also be read as a call to arms in terms of how we are all living our lives. The ‘Viral’ track explores ideas of overconsumption, ecological overshoot, which refers to how we as a species are using up the planets resources faster than we are able to replace them. We have been so successful as a species, and have developed technologically at such a lightening pace, that the behavioural traits instilled by our evolution have become obsolete. We evolved in an environment where it made sense to act and think only in the short term.
As Kahneman demonstrates in the brilliant ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, we are not very good at thinking long term, which is the cause of much of the destruction we are causing to the planet; we have become a victim of our own success. And so in this respect ‘Off the Grid’, is a call to arms, an appeal to become more conscious of how our actions affect the world around us; how our decisions as consumers can have far reaching effects on the planet. Perhaps we can all, as a collective, move towards a more sustainable way of living. I certainly hope so, and I still have lots of faith in the potential and capacity for good in us as a species, as bad as we can sometimes be.
It has been interesting to read the thoughts of Al Gore in a recent interview with ‘Wired Magazine’ - https://www.wired.com/story/global-warming-inequality-covid-19-and-al-gore-is-optimistic/
Gore has been notoriously pessimistic about the prospects of the species in recent years – Inconvieniant Truth – but surprisingly his tune appears to have changed – perhaps there an agenda behind it but it is refreshing to read, nonetheless. At a time when climate change seems to be accelerating, and we are in the grip of a global pandemic, you would expect Gore to be a prophet of doom, but he is exactly the opposite. He believes that we are at the beginning of a sustainability revolution, which will be driven by the private sector, and which the Covid19 pandemic will actually accelerate the move towards.
As a species we are hardwired at not being very good at predicting the future, and if asked to do so, most of us will picture it as not much different than things are today. The truth is that change can and does happen dramatically fast. I believe this pandemic has highlighted the fragility and impermanence of our lives; how quickly we can lose all that is dear to us, something not really experienced by those in the west over the last 75 years.
I believe that we can and will change, and hopefully in time to avert serious damage and consequences. That’s the beauty of human beings; we have the capacity for acts of great good as much as great evil, and I have faith in us that we will all do the right thing. These aren’t the end days at all, they are the beginning of a whole new era.
Who were the producers that provided you such dope instrumentals for the album?
I really have a lot of respect for those who produce music, and are content to sit in the background. To me, it shows they are less driven by ego, that they do it for the passion, for the love of creating music, and I really respect that.
There are some great instrumentals on the album; 27Corazones is the producer of the ‘Alexandre Cazes’ track, which I have just posted the video to, another brilliant video production by Eli Lev. The producer whom I am most happy to have on the album is Stapes, who put together the instrumental on the ‘Eternal Sunshine’ track. The reason being that he and his brother, Gobi, also a producer, were amongst the first people I made friends with I first started posting music on Soundcloud last July. It means a lot because getting that love and positive support when you first start out, and are full of doubt and insecurity, means so much and goes so far, and it is something I won’t forget.
The ability to post feedback and connect with listeners and artists, is one of the reasons why I will always have a special place for Soundcloud in my heart. It is the ideal place for those starting out, as feedback is so important in terms of getting a feel for where you’re at, and what you need to improve on, where your strengths and weaknesses are. The other platforms can feel so anonymous and soulless, whereas with Soundcloud there can be a real sense of community and you can build a network of like-minded friends and artists; Darealmrlee, Aceox, Kamihamiha, are three other really great artists whom I have been fortunate to meet via SoundCloud.
Within Soundcloud, you also have companies like RespotExchange, who help artists to reach out and receive feedback from others; they also have been really amazing in supporting me during this first year, especially Jazz and Toby, who are really amazing, positive people. Speaking with Stapes last week, he mentioned to me that as a producer, platforms like SoundCloud, and in fact the internet as a whole, have been great in helping him and all of us connect with those we would never have crossed paths with. The internet is perhaps the single greatest invention that has come about in my lifetime, it has changed all of our lives in ways we perhaps do not yet fully comprehend, but which history will bear witness to.
Aside from Stapes, I would also like to mention Fifty7Beats, who composed the instrumental on the ‘Sheep’s Clothing’ track. Again, he is an amazing and positive soul, full of love and a great passion for what he does. He is only perhaps sixteen or seventeen and has been playing instrumentals since eleven or twelve years of age. He is wise beyond his years, and his music is amazing; I am hoping we will be able to work on a full-length project together in the near future.
I would love for everyone to listen to, and to enjoy the album, and hopefully to take something positive from it. I am very serious and passionate about this, it is the current love of my life, and every line I write and record has been carefully considered; there are no throw away lines in my work, so it really means a lot to me when people listen, and really listen to the words I write; that is the greatest gift anyone could pay me. Thank you.
“Alexandre Cazes” is the fourth visual you have dropped from the album. Please tell us a little about it.
‘Alexandre Cazes’ is the latest visual to drop from ‘Off the Grid’. It is a lyric video, again produced by Israeli video artist Eli Lev, whom I hold in such high regard. The title of the track refers to the infamous Alexandre Cazes, owner and administrator of dark web marketplace Alpha Bay. The site was closed when Cazes was arrested in Thailand in July of 2017; he subsequently hung himself in his prison cell before extradition to the US.
I used the figure of Cazes to frame the track, as I saw him as a sort of figurehead of the dark side of capitalism, a free market taken to its inevitable extreme, when anything is available to be bought or sold and there is no jurisdiction upon it. The track itself centres around a drug dealer, who personifies Alphabay and Cazes on a smaller scale. He is ruthless, without compassion and empathy; that which he does have is buried deep; he does not want emotion or moral concerns to affect his ability to exploit and destroy those he uses for personal gain.
The beat was composed by 27Corazones; and it is probably my favourite track on the album. Just out of interest, this was not the first version of the track I recorded; there is an alternate recording on a completely different instrumental, which includes a third verse; I’m sure I will post it up on Soundcloud soon.