Wilby, the indie-rock project of songwriter and artist Maria Crawford, today releases new single “Care” ahead of debut album Center of Affection. Due out October 10 via Hit The North Records, the record features previous singles “Pleaser”, “Spin”, “Experiments” and “Center of Affection”, which have seen support from FLOOD Magazine, KEXP, Atwood Magazine, Northern Transmissions, RIFF Magazine, and more. Alongside the track, Wilby announces a string of live shows, including Fall headlining dates in Los Angeles and Nashville, as well as a November tour with NYC band Work Wife.
An emotional centerpiece to Center of Affection, “Care” opens with soft vocals and gentle guitar, building into a steady crescendo that erupts in a blistering scream of distortion. Written in spring 2023, the song marked a turning point for Crawford, realizing it was time to create an album from the same place of “accountability and guttural confession.”
“We’ve been playing it live for two years now,” shares Crawford. “The first handful of times, I couldn’t make it through. It’s about the people I’ve hurt, and the pain of knowing that—even while giving them so much of myself. That tension is something I think we all feel. Most of us don’t mean to hurt each other—we’re just trying, imperfectly, to love.
An accompanying video directed and shot by Blaire Beamer captures Wilby both among, and peering in from the outside, her Nashville friends.
“Living in Nashville, there’s a fishbowl-like experience of feeling like the industry and your friends (also in the industry) are watching you and getting plagued with comparison and jealousy,” continues Crawford. “‘Care’ is also about family, biological or chosen, and the things that get in the way. To its core, it’s about how the bravest thing we can do is to apologize.”
Wilby’s Center of Affection began as a creative practice, a result of morning pages that unfurled like stream of consciousness diary entries. During previous efforts, when the artist born Maria Crawford would write to prompts, enter the nebulous “album mode,” or search for a theme to spur her creative practice, everything felt forced. It was only in letting go, in a decision to let her strongest ideals bubble from the roots of her subconscious to the top of her mind, that she was able to write her bravest, most beautiful, and strongest effort to date.
“When I had previously tried to write records with a concept or just a clear prompt, I would end up obfuscating my ideas,” she explains. “It wasn’t until I debunked that for myself that I was able to break through and write the songs I wanted to.” The songs flowed very naturally from the routine sparked by her morning pages, where she would jot down ideas uninhibited by direction, feasibility, or vulnerability. “Songs would just flow from that practice, which was very inspiring.”
Despite the creative wellspring from which these songs emerged, there’s a precision and clarity to Wilby’s songwriting that is fully-formed on Center of Affection. She’s been one of Nashville’s most exciting indie artists since graduating from the city’s Belmont College, but on her debut LP, that promise is fulfilled; there’s an intoxicating splendor to this album, rich and filling both lyrically and sonically.
On projects like 2021’s EP Translucent Beauty and 2023’s EP happiest woman, desires and wants are amplified, projected onto center stage, and ruminated over. On Center of Affection, these urges are still circling, but Crawford is more interested in why they emerged than satisfying them.
“While writing this record, I was trying to get in touch with myself,” she explains. “I realized I was pretty disconnected from my childhood as well as my current and present self. I had to understand the ‘why’ that led me to be so disconnected and then understand and have compassion for myself.”
Wilby will perform headlining shows in Los Angeles and Nashville this Fall before heading on tour with NYC band Work Wife.
Center of Affection is due out October 10 via Hit The North Records. Pre-save the album here | Bandcamp vinyl pre-order here.
Tour Dates
Headline
- Friday, October 24 – The Blue Room, Nashville, TN
- Friday, November 14 – Permanent Records, Los Angeles, CA
with Work Wife
- Sunday, November 16 – Club Cafe, Pittsburgh, PA
- Tuesday, November 18 – Rumba, Columbus, OH
- Wednesday, November 19 – Turntable, Indianapolis, IN
- Thursday, November 20 – Hideout, Chicago, IL
- Friday, November 21 – Cactus Club, Milwaukee, WI
- Saturday, November 22 – Beachland Tavern, Cleveland, OH
- Sunday, November 23 – Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA
Thoughts Words Action 