Mayo indie-pop artist Lydia Ford has released her latest single Sink or Swim. The song was written during a bleak January, when the Castlebar-born artist says she was having nightmares about water!
Lydia’s passion for music started at a young age when she was surrounded by it in her home in Castlebar. She was very involved in the town pantomime as a child and later played in bands in the TF’s Ruby Room.
As a teenager, she took guitar lessons from local musician Michael Buckton and singing lessons from Anne Marie and Hugh Francis of Mayo Vocal Academy.
Explaining the track, Lydia, who is now based in Berlin, said: “I was having nightmares about water. Every night I fought against the waves and during the day I was sleep deprived, feeling lost and stuck in a rut.
“Ultimately I decided I needed to make a change and the song is the journey to that decision – my only two choices, in the nightmares and in life, were to sink or swim.”
Surprisingly upbeat in its music, Sink or Swim was co-written with Jess Pascal from Morning Midnight, who also co-produced alongside Sam Stevenson.
Lydia was in a variety of pop-punk bands and, after university, she began working for Irish TV channel TV3. However, after moving to Brooklyn, USA, Lydia rediscovered her love for songwriting, posting demos on SoundCloud, which led to her sharing her own music.
By 2021’s track Feel It For You, Lydia had developed her sound, leading to airplay in Ireland and the UK and extensive editorial playlists across Spotify, press coverage from Billboard, Earmilk and Uproxx, and syncs in Made In Chelsea.
Lydia has performed sets at Ireland Music Week 2022, Other Voices Ballina and We’ve Only Just Begun Festival.
Sink or Swim is released on Bloom Records.
