Those who tuned in to watch the new Netflix series How To Become a Cult Leader most likely noticed Lola Blanc, the “former cult member/podcaster” who adds her own expertise to the show’s title-explained premise. But Blanc’s ambition runs far deeper than cults and wider than podcasts, as the multi-hyphenate artist also excels in music and filmmaking, having originally co-wrote Britney Spears’ single “Ooh La La” and premiering her new psychological horror film Pruning at Palm Springs International Shortfest in June.
The music comes into amplified sound today (August 8) with the release of dramatic new single “Trust Me,” which shares its title with her podcast and some sonic DNA with the more theatrical brand of alt-pop we hyped last week when discussing new acts like The Last Dinner Party and Lucia & The Best Boys.
Blanc’s sound, however, skewers a bit darker, and “Trust Me” slowly rolls out of the shadows, via crowd-sourced label We Are: The Guard, with a striking focus that both growls and purrs as it looks inward for answers.
“’Trust Me’ is a song about anxiety,” says Blanc. “I wrote it after I’d had my first panic attack and went through a period of severe anxiety — anxiety about anxiety — that kind of came out of nowhere, and eventually led to me getting treated for OCD. And while I was still learning the skills in therapy, I was struggling with which thoughts and feelings were ‘real’ and which ones were my anxiety misfiring, and I was just exhausted and feeling foggy all the time, which I now know is just derealization. But it really felt like I was broken. Like my body had betrayed me.”
She adds: “So the song came when I’d started doing a lot of work on accepting some uncertainty, and becoming okay with the idea that I wasn’t always going to do it right, shit was just gonna feel weird sometimes, and I needed to build trust in myself, trust that I could handle it, even if I did my recovery ‘wrong’. Even if my worst case scenario happened. The song was basically a pep talk to myself that I could do this, and I was gonna be okay.”
Trust her.