Punch Brothers kick off their 2011 tour schedule next week with two shows in Massachusetts. The Boston Globe spoke with Chris Thile about the band, which it describes as "the rare band of musicians who are all virtuosos in their own right. Progressive bluegrass is the shorthand for what they do, but that doesn’t capture the music’s full scope." The Boston Herald calls them a "progressive bluegrass supergroup" that has "fast become the hottest pickers in the land."
Punch Brothers kick off their extensive 2011 tour schedule next week with two shows in Massachusetts, first at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton on Wednesday and then at the Somerville Theater outside Boston on Thursday. Both concerts include opening sets by The Secret Sisters, protégées of T Bone Burnett, as will next Friday's concert in Burlington, Vermont, and the sold-out p-Bingo Night at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City next Saturday, January 15.
Previewing next week's show at the Somerville, Punch Brothers mandolinist/singer/songwriter Chris Thile spoke with the Boston Globe's James Reed for a feature article in the paper examining the band's roots and Thile's tireless commitment to music making of the highest order. Reed describes Punch Brothers as "an ideal outlet" for Thile's aims at "transcendence" (Thile's word) through music.
"Punch Brothers," writes Reed, "is the rare band of musicians who are all virtuosos in their own right. Progressive bluegrass is the shorthand for what they do, but that doesn’t capture the music’s full scope."
The article goes on to give a more apt description of just what the band does do, as heard on their latest Nonesuch release, the Grammy-nominated Antifogmatic,
... [T]hey conjure a highly idiosyncratic brand of Americana with a classical music sensibility and complex song structures you would associate with jazz. Melodies are meticulously arranged, often labyrinthine. Notes are sung in tight, multipart harmonies, as if the Louvin Brothers had expanded to a quintet. And the whole affair benefits from your utmost attention.
Read the complete article at boston.com.
The Boston Herald's Jed Gottlieb, in a look at all the city has to offer on the music scene, includes the Somerville show from this "progressive bluegrass supergroup," suggesting they have "fast become the hottest pickers in the land." Read more at bostonherald.com.
For more on the band's upcoming tour, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour. To pick up a copy of Antifogmatic, head to the Nonesuch Store, where you'll find a free download of the group's Grammy-nominated track, "New Chance Blues," up for Best Country Instrumental Performance.
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