Nicole Millar is ready to introduce Excuse Me, her anticipated debut album.
It’s the product of two years of life, a whole lot of growth and a rollercoaster of emotions. Excuse Me charts everything from admitting your faults and owning your shit to wild nights with best friends and the bittersweet parts of love, lust and relationships.
Pop music with bite and electronic production collide on Excuse Me for songs that bleed glitter, guts and neon pink. Some of the tracks are tributes to getting rowdy with girlfriends or daydreams about wanting to be rich in New York, others are eyerolls at fake people, button-pushing boyfriends and ex-lovers. They’re all feisty, fun and made up of real, relatable feelings.
Nicole wrote on every song on the album, working with producers Sable, Dan Farber, Hoodboi, xSDTRK and Kyle Shearer to bring her words to life in studios between Sydney, Stockholm and L.A. Every song is a piece of her history, the work of a woman who’s found her sound and is sure of herself. For Nicole, the vision was to create music that’s “pop, but not”.
The album features Nicole’s hit singles ‘Signals’ and ‘Blindfolded’ as well as her new 80s-inspired release ‘Gimme A Break’, an anthem-in-wait for women who want to go their own way and won’t be tied down. Excuse Me also features collaborations with two of music’s best upcoming names, Sydney pop identity Muki (who features on ‘Pink Sundae’) and Bay Area’s HENO (on ‘Sign Me Up’).
“I can’t help it, but I write about boys and love and problems,” Nicole laughs. “But I’ve had so many EPs where it’s mainly just me writing about boys, so I wanted to write some songs about other fun stuff too. I’m confident with myself on the album, and even the love songs are a bit cheekier — because if someone’s been mean or let me down, I’ll try and twist them and be like “actually, I’m okay”. Like, bitch, I’m not crying for you. I don’t cry for anyone. I had a lot more fun with these songs.”
But while the songs might be big and bright, the subject matter is personal, inspired by a feeling, a visual, a memory, or a frustration that had to be vented in song. And, Nicole says, “At the end of the day, I made the album for me.”
Things have been non-stop for Nicole Millar Since she stepped out as a solo artist in 2016 with her EP Tremble, which went Gold in Australia and amassed a cool 8 million spins on Spotify. As well as scoring massive radio play with ‘Signals’ and ‘Blindfolded’, Nicole’s been picked to tour with Troye Sivan, support SZA and fit in sets at Splendour in the Grass.
It’s been a rapid ascent for the girl who broke through as the voice of Peking Duk’s ARIA-Winning, triple j-conquering, three times Platinum hit ‘High’ in 2014. With Excuse Me, 2018 is sure to be her biggest year yet.