Work Wife with special guests Wilby and Jessie Phelps at Turntable in Indianapolis on Wednesday, November 19, 2025!

Work Wife

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There’s a cascade of moments at the end of “Strangers” – the single that leads off Work Wife’s new 2024 EP Waste Management – that marks a change for the Brooklyn folk-rock project.

When chief songwriter Meredith Lampe’s rumination on loneliness trails off into near-silence, her voice returns suddenly, harmonized by a raucous chorus singing with her in kind, recasting her story as a solitary experience shared in infinite parallel. The band responds by wringing out their final bars for all they’re worth, and the post-take laughter and “that was perfect” chatter is left in, the joy in the room palpable. Lampe may be disillusioned, but she’s no longer alone.

Conceived as a companion piece to Quitting Season – the 2022 EP that won the band a label home on Born Losers Records – Waste Management is a confident set of strides into a new era for Work Wife, marking the first release where singer-guitarist Lampe is now formally joined by comrades Kenny Monroe (bass/vocals), Cody Edgerly (drums), and Isaac Stalling (lead guitar).

Brought again into lush, full-color adaptation by the producer duo of Jordan Dunn-Pilz and Dan Alvarez (TOLEDO) and mixing by Melina Duterte (Jay Som), Waste Management is a warm reply to its older sibling, adding a world of nuance to Lampe’s grounded, wryly humorous perspectives and delivering a sound newly shot through with communal energy – refined after racking up tour dates in support of Husbands, Anthony Green, and NYC peers Fenne Lily and Christian Lee Hutson, in addition to appearances at SXSW and Audiotree Festival.

Wilby

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There’s an intoxicating splendor to this album, rich and filling both lyrically and sonically.

Take “Spin,” a raw and intimate rock jam built around sixteenth-note hi-hat patterns and interlocking guitar melodies. “Crying in spin class, I’m going so fast,” Wilby sings, before adding: “I never felt this way until now.” It’s personal, yet so clear and evocative that it plays as much like a scene from a film as it does a song. This wealth of imagery courses through the project like a vein.

At other moments, the songwriting veers into the poetic, creating an intangible space that serves as a divide — a different side of Wilby. “Body” takes on the characteristics of a folk-rock tune with plucked acoustic guitars and a vocal performance from Crawford that flickers like a long-running candle. The chorus is simple but shows scars in its minimalism: “The body always knows,” she sings.

On projects like 2021’s Translucent Beauty and 2023’s 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 in 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.”

Crawford, through writing this album, began to examine her relationship to attention — the way she craved it — and ultimately, not feeling shame in wanting to be seen. “The album, I think, points to all of our inner child desires to have parental affection, to have care and support from other people. Connection, I realized, can come from feeling seen and supported,” she says.

The magic of Wilby as a band — and Crawford’s songwriting more intimately — is how she takes these very personal and specific feelings and extrapolates them into universal truths, to ideas we all share and struggle with. Center of Affection is a personal reflection of a communal experience.

The album finds Crawford sifting through feelings of dissociation, of trying to find a connection to herself and those around her. On “Experiments,” pedal steel yelps provide an anchor for Crawford, who sings to her partner: “I feel like you get the short end of the stick of all my experiments.” Self-growth can come at the expense of others. There’s an uncomfortability in that, but as Crawford explains: “To love a person is to love a process.”

In that sense, Center of Affection is itself a process — a snapshot of an artist and person discovering themselves in real time. “I like to think of the album as a coming-of-age story, a journey of connecting with my younger self and giving my younger self space and validation,” she explains. It’s only through this work that Maria Crawford can grow as her adult self. “I’m in pursuit of trying to connect with my younger self and heal my current one,” she concludes.

WORK WIFE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS WILBY AND JESSIE PHELPS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2025

18+

TURNTABLE

INDIANAPOLIS, IN

TICKETS AT TURNTABLEINDY.COM

ABOUT TURNTABLE

Turntable is Forty5's newest venue, nestled in the vibrant Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis at 6281 N College Avenue. Adjacent to The Vogue Theatre, this recently revitalized space exudes the charm of an exclusive speakeasy.

The front features a stylish bar and vinyl listening room, while the back opens up into an expansive concert hall, purpose built for live music. Reimagined to be inviting and warm, it’s a place built for discovering your next favorite artist.

PLEASE NOTE:

THIS SHOW IS GENERAL ADMISSION AND SEATING IS NOT PROVIDED. YOU MUST BE 18+ TO ENTER THE VENUE WITH A VALID FORM OF IDENTIFICATION. ALL TICKETS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE. TWO FORMS OF IDENTIFICATION MAY BE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY.