Ian Sweet, will release her new album, Show Me How You Disappear, on March 5th via Polyvinyl Records. Ahead of the album’s release Jilian Medford AKA: Ian Sweet has given us a taste of the album, with the single/video, “Drink The Lake.”

In 2018, Medford wrote “Dumb Driver” on an acoustic guitar while living in a “hobbit hole” back house in Los Angeles, with “Power” emerging after. Mentally she was in a dark place. By January 2020, following increasingly severe panic attacks, Medford began a two-month intensive outpatient program, including six-hour days of therapy. It yielded an unprecedented level of self-reflection for Medford, who already plumbs the depths of her emotions for her songwriting. She took a step back from music to completely immerse herself in the program, and once she felt ready to move on at the end of February.

Show Me How You Disappear was recorded with Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Empress Of) and Andy Seltzer (Maggie Rogers), among others. Medford chose the producers that fit each song, then brought in Chris Coady to mix and tie everything together. While writing the record, Medford revisited the discography of her forever favorite band, Coldplay and noted inspiration from the vocal stylings of Young Thug.

The cyclical nature of obsessive thought patterns shapes Show Me How You Disappear. It’s self-referential, each song in conversation with one another, tracing the same relationship and the desire to be an escape artist from your own life. But there’s also the repetition Medford learned to help herself via Emotional Freedom Technique tapping, which involves tapping pressure points on the body and repeating mantras to curb anxiety. Reciting mantras is a form of teaching — leaning into the repetition, retraining your brain, learning new realities. Show Me How You Disappear also offered a certain liberation to Medford. As personal as it is — like preceding albums Shapeshifter and Crush Crusher — here, post-therapy, Medford was able to approach her songwriting in a new way. “This is the first record that I leave that space for myself. I feel a freedom on this one that I haven’t felt with the others. People always say ‘I put all of me into this’, but I actually didn’t this time — I left space.”

This is immediate in “Drink The Lake,” a track that “taps into my own twisted logic to try and break away from obsessive thought patterns,” Medford explains. “It turned into a pop anthem of seemingly silly ways to try and forget someone, like saying their name backwards, but I feel these devices contributed to my healing.”

Ian Sweet
Show Me How You Disappear
Tracklist

1. My Favorite Cloud
2. Drink The Lake
3. Sword
4. Dirt
5. Sing Till I Cry
6. Dumb Driver
7. Get Better
8. Power
9. Show Me How You Disappear
10. I See Everything