"I have been trying to surround myself with what I know will bring me at least one moment of pure bliss a day," Jillian Medford told Noisey. IAN SWEET, the solo project of Medford, joins us for another installment of our dinner party concert series in Los Angeles, this time at Checker Hall on September 16, for what is sure to be more than just one moment of pure bliss. Their newest album, last year’s Crush Crusher, garnered praise for Medford's straightforward delivery of personal lyrics on impossible subjects—when we featured standout track "Spit" on our Buzzing Daily playlist, our writer Samantha Weisenthal complimented her “knack for casually wrecking her audience.”
Medford started IAN SWEET as a student at the Berklee College of Music and while the band has gone through several iterations, she has landed on the most impressive one after taking full control for herself, and these dreamy, fuzzy, biting songs are her best yet. Join us on September 16 as we begin our celebration of 10 years of The Wild Honey Pie over three courses of flavorful Mediterranean tastes and unlimited alcoholic kombucha in an intimate, historic lodge. We have been at it for a decade now and look forward to a bright future of spotlighting the musicians we love in innovative ways.
We are proud to announce that the profts from ticket sales from this event will be donated to RAICES which benefits refugees and immigrants. Listen to IAN SWEET on Spotify here and find them on Instagram here.
“Crush Crusher captures IAN SWEET during a growth spurt… Medford embraces the change, pushing herself as a singer, songwriter, and musician pursuing independence.” — Pitchfork
"Comfort, the kind born from confidence, pervades Crush Crusher, even as the songs themselves grapple with insecurity. Medford’s stirring vocals lead the way, the arrangements sprawling and flexing in tune to the tender pleas of “Bug Museum”, her ferocious wail on “Falling Fruit”, or the teasing verses of “Ugly/Bored." — Consequence of Sound
"The first thing that strikes you about Ian Sweet’s bright, bracing indie-pop is the tension between Jilian Medford’s diminutive voice and the huge, candied tumult she’s creating and hurling her voice into, and against." — Rolling Stone
"'Hiding' is a song I wrote for myself to be reminded to never get consumed with anything to the point of forgetting about my own needs," she wrote. "It is something I long for, to be confident in the things that make me, me." — The Fader
“The songs on Crush Crusher feel like a good step, songs that trace the complicatedness of trying to figure out where you stand with other people, but offer some comfort when you don’t have any answers.” — Noisey