The title of the Jon Stickley Trio’s 2020 album, Scripting The Flip, suggested that guitar phenom Stickley has a knack for turning phrases inside out, and that same impulse is evident, too, in the way that the inspiration for the group’s latest Organic Records single — the enforced homebound idleness of quarantine life — led to its title: “In And About.”

Starting with skittering lines from Stickley’s guitar and Lyndsay Pruett’s fiddle that alternately converge and diverge over Hunter Deacon’s rattling percussion, “In And About” intersperses passages of tense, almost anxious energy with more lyrical and meditative ones, mirroring the shifting states of mind that Stickley says have been a typical experience for the group, their friends and colleagues — and, indeed, throughout the country and even around the world.

“‘In and About’ reflects the experience many of us had when life came to a screeching halt,” he notes. “Adjusting to life in quarantine left me feeling extremely restless, with nothing to do but climb the walls and panic. After months that frantic energy gave way to a sense of peace and gratitude for the good things in my life. Overall this song is about unexpected seismic shifts that give you perspective and the ability to see the beauty in the world.”

For artists who have built substantial portions of their musical identity through vigorous touring and the unique excitement of on-stage, in-the-moment creation, the coronavirus’s disruption of the live music experience has posed a special challenge.  With compositions and performances like “In And About,” the Jon Stickley Trio has not only met the challenge, but in the course of doing so, has taken its studio artistry to a new level of musical sophistication and emotional depth.

Listen to "In and About" HERE.