Pocket Poem

While it might confound those fixated with an artist's niche in the marketplace, guitarist Anthony Pirog knows little of stylistic limitations-in point of fact, Pirog's latest opus brings to mind the beloved Duke Ellington adage: Beyond category. Initially based in jazz, Pirog's seeming objective is to be a "category" unto himself, embracing not only jazz but avant-garde and indie rock, noise, and ambient soundscapes. Pocket Poem, his second under his own name and his first since joining forces with 50% of DC's legendary Fugazi as Messthetics (with two releases on Dischord), is in a zone where stylistic "handles" matter little but the idea of music is vibrant, expansive, and kaleidoscopic.

"Anthony Pirog's work is otherworldly - feverish in its delivery and interstellar in its complexity - but his feet have long been planted on the ground in Washington DC... But what's the most DC thing a DC musician can do? Well, they could start a band with members of Fugazi. That would do it..." - Guitar.com. "So this is what all the fuss is about...[regarding] Anthony Pirog's status as a Washington, D.C. area guitar god...and for all his technical prowess, Pirog possesses a skilled composer's knack for memorable themes and melodies." - AllMusic.