Pirog, Anthony - In Side
SKU
AGSR 002
“In Side is a collection combining newly composed pieces and material that I've been performing live for many years. I have long been a fan of solo guitar recordings that do not shy away from the use of overdubbing (John Abercrombie - Characters, Sonny Sharrock - Guitar, Bill Frisell - Ghost Town) and have always wanted to create a release using this approach.
In Side was recorded at my home in Washington, DC during the Summer of 2020 and was mixed and mastered by Mike Reina at The Brink in Centrevile, VA.
After touring with The Messthetics (the post-Fugazi trio I'm in) for the better part of two years, the absence of live performances left me with the question of what to do with my time during quarantine. As a way of continuing to move forward I began completing unfinished works that had been sitting on the shelf for many years. After releasing 5 records and contributing to a compilation in 2020 I started to record In Side. Some songs were written as a reminder that life was continuing to take place even though I was disconnected from family and friends. The birth of my niece during the pandemic inspired the composition “Song for Ava” which evoked many conflicting emotions. The joy of celebrating family was present in the writing process as well as the longing and memory of celebrating with those who mean the most to us. Other songs such as “Strange”, a song originally performed by Patsy Cline, and Horace Silver's "Peace" are works that I have been performing for many years but didn’t find a home on my other recordings. The song “Janel” was the first composition I penned for the cello/guitar duo I have with my wife, Janel Leppin, and was written twenty years ago.
The new compositions for In Side poured out of me since I was forced to exist in my music room with nothing to do but fill my time with feeling the emotions we have all felt in this period of extreme isolation.”–Anthony Pirog