Ian Sweet
“#23”
Shapeshifter
Shapeshifter, due to drop in September, is the new album by rock trio, Ian Sweet. Coming from Brooklyn, Ian Sweet is Jillian Medford, Tim Cheney, and Damien Scalise. The combo is electric. Playing a cross of Dream Pop, Math Pop, and Skater Punk, Ian Sweet has come up with a sound that is truly their own. As their press says about them:
Like its title suggests, most of the songs on Shapeshifter don’t settle in a particular scene so much as they delve into a sensibility. Whether Medford’s singing about Slime Time Live, eating ice cream in bed on “All Skaters Go To Heaven,” or honoring her favorite athlete Michael Jordan on “#23,” Medford displaces loneliness by falling in love with the small things that make her happy; like skateboarding, basketball, candy, and her preferred footwear: Crocs.
Accompanied by Cheney and Scalise’s playful instrumentation,Shapeshifter becomes a celebratory purging, an album that finds humor in self-deprecation and vice. IAN SWEET’s debut interrogates capital-e Existence through a candy-coated lens, their mathy precision scaffolding the chaos of Medford’s personal neurosis and turning those anxieties into something hook-laden and relatable.
Feeling confused and completely lost never sounded so fun. This is a great album by a great band.