Pressing Strings

roots · americana · blues

Pressing Strings is a roots trio from Annapolis, Maryland, led by guitarist and vocalist Jordan Sokel with Nick Welker on bass and Justin Kruger on drums; all three sing, and the arrangements lean on multi-part harmony rather than added players. Sokel left college in the mid-2000s to write and perform his own songs, and the band dates its formation to 2006, releasing its first album, Where We Are, in 2008. Its material draws on blues, funk, soul and folk. Later records are Episodes (2010), Pressing Strings (2012), Life of a Tree (2013), Owe the Source (2015), Settle In (2020) and, as the seventh full-length, ...And I For You, released on 14 July 2023; the EPs Most of Us (2016) and Morning Takes (2021) fall between them. ...And I For You was produced by Steve Wright and issued through Evil Teen Records, the label run by Gov't Mule's Warren Haynes, and Sokel has described its songs as concerned with gratitude, devotion and holding to what matters in uncertain conditions. The band works the mid-Atlantic and southeastern festival circuit, with appearances at FloydFest, Sweetwater 420 Fest, Firefly, the Peach Music Festival, Cavefest, the Palisade Roots and Bluegrass Festival and the Annapolis Baygrass Music Festival, and it has opened for Gov't Mule, the Beach Boys, Toad the Wet Sprocket and JJ Grey & Mofro.

Past shows