Friday October 27 * 7pm * TICKETS

Come celebrate Anthony Pirog's new album, The Nepenthe Series, Vol. 1, out October 27 on Otherly Love Records, featuring duos with Nels Cline, Andy Summers, Janel Leppin, Luke Stewart, John Frusciante, and more. The album will be played through a high fidelity system provided by Linear Tube Audio, and Anthony and Janel will each perform solo sets.

Washington, D.C.-based guitarist Anthony Pirog is a musician who knows no stylistic limits. Educated in jazz but enthusiastically embracing diverse forms from indie/punk-informed rock to ambient experimentation, Pirog has emerged as one of the most noteworthy artists on the 21st century D.C. area music scene, defying predictability with live appearances in myriad configurations, from solo experimental sets to his genre-defying duo with cellist (and life partner) Janel Leppin, the hard-charging instrumental trio The Messthetics, and his avant jazz trio with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Ches Smith. Pirog even led a performance of Terry Riley's landmark minimalist composition "In C," featuring an ensemble of 22 musicians, at D.C.'s Sonic Circuits experimental music festival in 2011. It's safe to say that no one knows precisely what to expect from Pirog, and that fact alone might make him noteworthy, but it's also helpful that he employs technology with uncommon intelligence, is guided by a surefooted artistic conception in each of his projects, and happens to possess killer chops.

Janel Leppin is a pillar of Washington, D.C.’s creative music and jazz community for over 20 years, as a cellist, composer, arranger, bassist and singer. She’s contributed as a string arranger and cello player to albums on Sub Pop, Dischord, Tzadik, Touch, Editions Mego, Sacred Bones. She has worked with Kyp Malone, Eyvind Kang, Oren Ambarchi, Anthony Pirog, Beauty Pill, Laughing Man and Marissa Nadler. Leppin records art-pop under her name and under the Mellow Diamond moniker and in longtime duo Janel and Anthony. Leppin’s jazz-centric vision on the majestic, abrasive Ensemble Volcanic Ash on Cuneiform Records, affirms her place as a boundless musician who constantly leaves the listener intrigued. It’s a puzzle in which jazz, chamber music, contemporary classical, and punk seamlessly coalesce with bracing results.