Willa Ford just released her long-awaited sophomore album, ‘amanda,’ out now, and it’s her first full-length in more than 20 years. The pop artist follows up her 2001 debut ‘Willa Was Here’ with a deeply personal body of work, and she’s paired the release with a new music video for the track “Disassociate.”
The album takes its title from Ford’s birth name, and it stands as a rebirth and a reclaiming of a dream nearly lost. After joining a longtime friend for informal songwriting sessions in 2023, the Northern California-based artist reconnected with a musical passion she’d kept dormant for years, the same talent that fueled her Top 40 breakout “I Wanna Be Bad.” As she dug deeper, Ford suffered her first bout with PNES, a type of seizure later traced to unresolved trauma tied to her past in music. Working through that trauma while learning to cope with her condition, she poured everything back into the music and arrived at the catharsis of ‘amanda.’
“Disassociate” stands among the album’s most revealing moments, offering an unflinching look at Ford’s experience with PNES (psychogenic nonepileptic seizures). “Through working with neuroscientists and neuro-psychs we learned that my brain had blocked out certain traumatic events, and that those events were interconnected with music—so it makes sense that I wanted to stay away from music for so many years,” she says. Driven by pulse-pounding rhythms and bright synth, the track captures the raw sensation of her seizures alongside a fierce determination to keep moving. “The more I learn about what happened to me, the better my chances are of no longer having the seizures,” she explains.
Other highlights run wide. “Love4Life” is a euphoric ode to her husband, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Ryan Nece. “Burn Burn” turns her inner monologue into a soaring anthem of self-salvation. “Carousel” showcases the full depth of Ford’s sonic imagination, drawing on her love for the symphonic pop of Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys. The record glows with the kind of honesty that turns personal struggle into something genuinely moving.
Ford reflected on the journey. “When I first started writing these songs, I didn’t know what I was writing for. But if I hadn’t unlocked certain things through my music, I don’t know if the seizures would have started—and it’s because of the seizures that so much has finally come to light. It feels remarkable to get to this place after all these years, and to be putting out a record that’s been incredibly healing for me,” she says.