Tory Silver – In Through The Front With Lasers
Tory Silver (she/they) is a Pittsburgh-based indie-rock musician whose music weaves elements of garage rock and indie pop to channel the small joys and inevitable uncertainties of residing in a body.
Today she announces her upcoming album In Through the Front with Lasers, out May 29th via Michi Tapes.
It takes its title from a bandmate’s kidney stone procedure – “they had to go in through the front with lasers” — and deals with chronic pain, losing a friend to a cult, jealousy, overthinking death, and the jobs that make everything worse.
Produced and engineered by Melina Cortez Duterte (Jay Som) and recorded at Duterte’s Los Angeles home studio with additional sessions in Pittsburgh with Greg Kump, the album swirls together a mix of heavy guitars and catchy choruses, though the lyrics cut deeper than the production lets on. Bright surfaces covering raw nerves. The songs sit with discomfort, acknowledging that some things don’t resolve – they just persist – and locate the work in response: not how to avoid the pain, but how to meet it.
Alongside the album announcement, Silver shares the new single and video for “Microwave.” Over jangly electric guitars, she muses on routines and tribulations, with the track coaxing wistfulness away from the mundane.
Her band is made up of bassist and backup vocalist Christian Anderson, percussionist Kyle Murphy, lead guitarist Dan Kramer, and rotating members Ross Weidman, Eli Weidman, Marcel Damiano, and Ray Cohen. The flexibility works in their favor – with Boston-based members Marcel and Ray, it’s easy to play shows with them there, or for bigger shows or festival spots have them travel here for what Silver likes to call, “big band”. What holds it together is chemistry and a shared openness.
“We all just click,” Silver says. “I’m not too serious, but I really care about what I do. I was a camp counselor for many years, and that has really informed my way of leading the band.The band is made up of people who are open to trying new things, come up with ideas, and being silly. Honestly I think being silly is a key part for me. You have to be able to be silly in this band.”
A proud Midwesterner originally from Northeast Ohio, Silver got her start in Boston, playing spots like Great Scott, O’Brien’s, and Club Passim, and recording her first two albums Observere, Slowly and EP Pepper before moving to Pittsburgh after a year and a half of long distance relationship – a city that also happened to sit two hours from her hometown. Silver didn’t expect to end up in Pittsburgh after working in Boston for almost a decade, but it turns out, it’s exactly where she needed to be. “It’s grungy here. It’s affordable. It’s really great. People can afford to be here more easily than say NYC or LA, and people are making use of it being a cheaper city and doing some really cool stuff.”
Tory Silver has toured across the Northeast and Midwest, with some opening spots for Bartees Strange, Katy Kirby, Jay Som, Remember Sports, Ezra Furman, and Summer Salt.
Silver is signed to Michi Tapes, a Pittsburgh-based cassette label run by Eric Stevens, whom she met while both were working at Trader Joe’s in the East Liberty neighborhood. In Pittsburgh’s DIY ecosystem, Stevens functions less like a traditional label head and more like an artistic nerve center – his roster includes local standouts Gina Gory, Tony From Bowling, Rex Tycoon, united by his curatorial instinct for the beautifully unpolished. Each release is a lovingly crafted artifact, home-dubbed on high-end Nakamichi decks and wrapped in a visual identity built from new and expired 35mm photography, Hi8 videography, and found footage and collage.
Beyond the label, Stevens is one of the scene’s go-to photographers, having documented more local band portraits than perhaps anyone else in the city. He operates as a kind of connective tissue, making everyone feel like a longtime friend. “Eric does a lot for the community,” Silver says. “He’s very talented, and it’s an honor to work with him on the release.”
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