• News

• All

Sep 14, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Alexa Viscius

IAN SWEET (the project of Jilian Medford) is releasing a new album, SUCKER, on November 3 via Polyvinyl. Now she has shared the album’s second single, “Emergency Contact,” via a music video. Brittany Reeber directed the video, which features Saturday Night Live’s Martin Herlihy. Watch it below, followed by IAN SWEET’s upcoming tour dates.

Previously Medford shared the album’s first single, “Your Spit,” which is also below.

Medford had this to say about the new song in a press release: “‘Emergency Contact’ is biting and sarcastic at its core. It’s a protection song to myself mostly. Trying to convince myself that I didn’t really want what I had lost in the first place as a way of coping with the outcome. The video we made for it is one of my favorite IAN SWEET videos ever (especially since it ties in with the ‘Your Spit’ video as well). I wanted to represent the humor that often goes hand in hand with deep sadness. In the video Martin (who plays the director) keeps quickly snapping me out of those deep dark moments and pushing my buttons to try to get a rise out of me so in turn I’ll put on the best performance possible.”

Reeber had this to say about directing the video: “A long time fan of Jilian’s work, I was really thrilled to be asked to collaborate and even more stoked when I realized that she was down to be funny. ‘Emergency Contact’ is probably my favorite track on the new record. It’s gut wrenching. So it felt most true to lean into a concept that played with the self-serious nature of a ballad. We also wanted to make something that would connect thematically to ‘Your Spit’ so we built a concept around a film set (the film you see screening in the movie theatre) and cast Martin Herlihy of SNL to play Jilian’s overbearing, maniacal director.”

SUCKER is the follow-up to 2021’s Show Me How You Disappear and 2022’s Star Stuff EP.

Medford says Show Me How You Disappear “was written during a really difficult period of my life after reckoning with a mental health crisis. I survived that very moment in my life through writing that record, and the extreme urgency to heal is reflected in the songwriting. With SUCKER, I felt more capable to take my time and experiment without being totally afraid of the outcome. It wasn’t life or death—it was just life, and I was lucky to be living it.”

SUCKER was co-produced by Alex Craig (Binki, Claud) and Isaac Eiger of Strange Ranger and was mixed by Al Carlson (St. Vincent, Jessica Pratt).

“I revisited the reasons why I started playing music to begin with,” Medford says. “I wanted to get more personal and showcase a more confident side musically and lyrically.”

Check out our COVID-19 Quarantine Artist Check In with Medford.

IAN SWEET Tour Dates:

Wed. Sept. 21 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern #
Sat. Nov. 4 - Brighton, UK @ Mutations Festival
Thu. Nov. 9 - London, UK @ Pitchfork Music Festival London - Hackney Church %
Sun. Nov. 12 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Tue. Nov. 14 - Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
Fri. Nov. 17 - Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon

# w/ Please Don’t Destroy
% w/ Crumb, Helado Negro

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.