Cincinnati artist Maura Weaver has played in a number of bands over the years, including Mixtapes, Ogikubo Station, The Homeless Gospel Choir, and Direct Hit!, and now she’s releasing a solo album for the first time. It’s called I Was Due For A Heartbreak and due September 15 via Don Giovanni Records (pre-order). Its lead single is the easygoing “Crush On You, Pt. II,” the second track on the album. The song bobs warmly with rocking drums and an alluring guitar solo outro. On the album and the single, Maura says:
I’ve wanted to do a solo project since I was a teenager, so why is it happening now? For so long I’ve stood in my own way and kept busy being in a ton of bands. I had trouble trusting myself and rarely completed songs. It wasn’t until pandemic isolation that I was forced to confront the reasons why. I also experienced a couple of bad breakups and songwriting became a haven, but also a fun daily practice. I wrote as much as possible in two years and in the soup were sad songs, silly songs, dumb songs. So much came together on the spot in the studio. The best songs ended up on the album and I really put all of myself into this. I’ve never been more excited to share something.
Crush On You Pt. II is a fun one and is the first single. It started out as a little power pop ditty fleshed out by a $17 Casio keyboard I bought at a flea market. For the studio version, we retained a lot of the same elements we used in the demo. I wanted it to sound hi-fi but homemade, wonky and imperfect. We recorded it in the basement of [engineer] John [Hoffman]’s old house. It needed to have the bliss and fuzz that is the nature of a crush!
Listen to “Crush On You, Pt. II” and check out the artwork and tracklist for I Was Due For A Heartbreak below.
I Was Due For A Heartbreak Tracklist
1. Ease On The Eyes
2. Crush On You Pt. II
3. As If Your Love
4. Sunshine
5. Languish In Anguish
6. Jefferson Highway
7. Nothing, Not Yet
8. Goner
9. I Was Due For A Heartbreak, I Guess
10. The Confines