Meet josh conway: The Marías’ Drummer Steps Out With Hypnotic Solo Track ‘crumble’

The Sweet Spot Between Dreamy, Uneasy and Completely Addictive

Allow us to introduce you properly to josh conway. If the name already sounds familiar, there is good reason: Conway is a founding member, drummer, producer and songwriter behind The Marías. But in 2026, he opened a new little side door and walked through it alone.

That door leads to plum, Conway’s debut solo album, released June 12 through Nice Life and Atlantic Records. And sitting right in the middle of its nine tracks is one of our favorite entry points into the project: the woozy, quietly addictive “crumble.”

“crumble” first arrived as a single on May 19, 2026, before taking its place as track five on plum. At 4 minutes and 50 seconds, it does not behave like a tidy verse-chorus pop song — and that is exactly what made it exciting for Conway to build.

Speaking with FLOOD, Conway described “crumble” as the most exciting song on the album to write and produce because it has no true verse or chorus. Each new section became its own canvas, while the vocals stayed deliberately minimal and repetitive.

Underneath that soft-focus production is something much less relaxed: an argument getting hotter and hotter as it goes. Conway said the subject and the production felt naturally connected, which makes sense once the track starts shifting under you instead of politely returning to the same familiar hook.

The larger plum project lives in that same tension. Conway has described his solo sound, at least for now, through drum machines, tape saturation and imperfections. The album circles anxiety, old relationships, past arguments and the emotional debris that sticks around long after you thought you had filed it away.

He has also been refreshingly open about how unlikely this solo chapter once felt. Conway said making a project of his own had been a dream since he first started creating music as a kid, but one band led to another until the idea seemed increasingly distant. Eventually, he and fellow Marías member María Zardoya decided to take their own solo-project “side quests” — hers as Not For Radio, his under his own name.

plum runs nine tracks — “bully,” “forget him,” “belly breathing,” “focus,” “crumble,” “breathless,” “when i need it,” “everywhere” and “forever” — and gives Conway room to stretch outside the architecture listeners already associate with The Marías.

So if you came here asking, who exactly is josh conway? Start with “crumble.” It is strange without trying too hard to be strange, melodic without sanding off its edges, and intimate enough to make the solo detour feel less like a side project and more like the beginning of an entirely new room.

Watch josh conway’s “crumble” Visualizer

The 2026 visualizer accompanies the 4:50 track from Conway’s debut solo album plum, released through Nice Life and Atlantic Records.

Source: josh conway, Nice Life / Atlantic Records, Apple Music and FLOOD.