Tag: chamber music

Che Apalache, “24 de marzo (Día de la Memoria)”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Though it’s largely viewed as a music by and for Appalachian and southern white Americans, bluegrass is a genre born of a much more complicated, harlequin heritage — as is the case for most American cultural touchstones. The U.S.A. is a melting pot country and bluegrass is melting pot music. As such, it takes on touches, overtones, and undertones of many other folk traditions with ease. Musicmakers from around the world, from Eastern Europe to Japan to South America, have for many years fashioned string bands that begin with the skeletal structure of American roots music — banjos, fiddles, mandolins, and so on — and expand into incredibly imaginative realms informed by their own cultures, backgrounds, stories, sights, and sounds.

One such band helping to further this global potential for bluegrass is Che Apalache. An Argentina-based bluegrass and old-time quartet, the group (with members from Mexico, North Carolina, and Argentina) covers a vast musical space that includes barn-burning picking, soulful, gospel-tinged vocals, and composed, cinematic arrangements with touches of chamber music and the virtuosity of formal training. One standout song from their brand new, Béla Fleck-produced album, Rearrange My Heart, is “24 de marzo (Día de la Memoria),” an instrumental tango written by fiddler Joe Troop based on experiences of banjo player Pau Barjau’s family members.

The tune commemorates victims of an Argentinian dictatorship that was backed by the United States. Día de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia is a holiday observed each year in Argentina on March 24, the anniversary of the coup of 1976. The bluegrass instrumentation doesn’t feel clunky or out of place utilizing the musical vocabularies of Central and South America in this context. Rather, it reinforces the fact that our communities — musical and otherwise — are strengthened by the experiences of others. And, it reminds us that there are so many more stories ready to be told by bluegrass bands, if we’re ready to hear them.

Punch Brothers, “Three Dots and a Dash”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The Punch Brothers begin “Three Dots and a Dash” with their best impression of the blips of a telegraph wire — or perhaps the bouncy, cyclical polyrhythms that we most associate with the soundtracks of news programs on TV and the radio — but this low-hanging, tangible thread of metaphor and text painting quickly falls away, enshrouded and enveloped by much more complicated beauty. The Punch Brothers embrace the befuddling, confounding, sometimes overwrought detail and musical acrobatics in their composing and arranging like a magician would, painstakingly poring over every last detail of their magnum opus illusion, leaning into the unwieldy and counterintuitive, knowing that these are the most compelling and awe-inspiring moments.

“Three Dots and a Dash” anchors these more lofty components with the pulsing, beating, metronomic undercurrent. That approach keeps the entire song bound together while myriad melodic narratives may pull listeners down one of so many theatrical, cinematic rabbit holes. So, when it dawns on a listener that “Three Dots and a Dash” also references a traditional, Tiki-style cocktail — a nod to the album’s title, All Ashore, as well as an homage to the band’s love of beach-ready libations and leis being a fundamental accessory in their current stage wear — that syncopated urgency brings their ears back to the core. And then, when it’s realized that in Morse code, three dots and a dash designate the letter V, which often stands as an abbreviation for “victory,” we realize two things: first, that once again, there is never just one take away from the beautiful, complicated, string band-centered art that the Punch Brothers execute on a higher level than almost anyone else operating within similar aesthetics, today; and secondly, that complex music is not inextricably bogged down by its own intricacies, when victorious, it can be intensified, deepened, and enriched by them.

Artist of the Month: Punch Brothers

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

To celebrate our Artists of the Month and their brand new album, All Ashore, we interviewed each individual member of the Punch Brothers, exploring the processes, circumstances, and factors that led to the creation of this latest crop of songs. The themes and responses are just as diverse as the five men themselves and their musical approaches.

Gabe Witcher, the fiddle player – and some might say secret weapon – in Punch Brothers, has been a performer for nearly his whole life. As a kid, he toured the Southwest playing bluegrass with his family’s band; that’s how he met Chris Thile, forming a musical friendship that has spanned more than three decades. Though his stage presence is low-key, his musicianship is undeniable, playing as joyously or mournfully as a song requires. This is also true on All Ashore. [Read Gabe’s interview]

Paul Kowert came on board as bassist for the Punch Brother about 10 years ago, stepping into a band of musicians he knew casually but admired greatly. In the following decade, he’s gained even more visibility in the world of acoustic music through his band Hawktail and a gig as bassist for David Rawlings Machine. His versatility is reflected in the list of bassists he cites as influences: Edgar Meyer, Mark Schatz, and Roy Milton “Junior” Huskey. He’s quick to admit that he’s not a lyricist, yet his musical contributions definitely shape the undercurrent of the new record. [Read Paul’s interview]

Chris Eldridge, the good-natured guitarist for Punch Brothers, comes by his bluegrass pedigree honestly. As a young man, he attended innumerable shows by Seldom Scene, a pioneering ensemble whose lineup included his father, banjo player Ben Eldridge. After studying at Oberlin Conservatory, he co-founded the Infamous Stringdusters, which won three IBMA Awards following their 2007 debut project, Fork in the Road. Indeed that album title proved auspicious, as Eldridge took a different path with the formation of Punch Brothers – a rewarding partnership that a decade later has yielded their newest project. [Read Chris’s interview]

Noam Pikelny has a dry delivery only when he’s joking around. But as the banjo player in Punch Brothers, his playing is crisp, inventive, and in step with his colleagues. This is especially true on All Ashore, which explores the personal challenges of relationships as well as the growing political divide in America. This year he’s nominated for IBMA Banjo Player of the Year, while his two previous solo albums earned Grammy nominations. His Twitter bio sums it up: “Widely considered the world’s premier color blind banjoist. Punch Brother.” [Read Noam’s interview]

Chris Thile is walking briskly into the venue while chatting agreeably about Punch Brothers’ new album. He’s used to multi-tasking, of course. In addition to kicking off an extensive tour with that eclectic band, he hosts the public radio show Live From Here, and he’s also a husband and father with a lot on his mind – particularly when it comes to the state of the world. [Read Chris’s interview]

Illustrations by Zachary Johnson

Punch Brothers’ Chris Thile: Escapism and Clarity

Posted on by Editor

Chris Thile is walking briskly into the venue while chatting agreeably about Punch Brothers’ new album, All Ashore. He’s used to multi-tasking, of course. In addition to kicking off an extensive tour with that eclectic band, he hosts the public radio show Live From Here, and he’s also a husband and father with a lot on his mind – particularly when it comes to the state of the world.

This interview is the fifth and final installment in a series saluting the Bluegrass Situation’s Artist of the Month: Punch Brothers.

I want to ask about “All Ashore” being the first song on here. Do you feel like it sets the tone for this album?

I do! It sort of introduces, through a fog, a lot of the content that we are mulling over the course of the record. It feels a little bit like a curtain is rising. I like starting with the nebulous imagery. It felt right.

I looked up the phrase “man of war” and found out that it’s an armed ship, which is an interesting image to start that song.

Yeah, I saw that character as moving forcefully through her environment, with conviction, with authority, with purpose … brushing aside the distraction, getting straight to business. I don’t know remember why “man of war” got stuck in my head, but just that ship, if you’ve seen a picture of one, you can tell it means business. So I felt like it was a good way to introduce people to that character.

Maybe I’m thinking too much into this song, but I like that long intro to the song because it reflects a tense relationship. It’s like, “Is someone gonna say something here?” Was that intentional?

[Laughs] Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah it’s a prelude to the record. The record was designed as a whole, as a piece of music, almost like a nine-movement piece of music. And while we hadn’t originally intended for “All Ashore” to be the first movement of it, you have to go with your material as a composer – or in our case a five-headed composer. Eventually “All Ashore” just could not be denied as the opening gesture, in large part due to that kind of prelude. It felt like a beginning. It felt like a nice way to say hello. …

I think of a sunless dawn, I think it’s overcast, I think there’s fog. But one thing I love about music is it means those things to me, and those are the pictures I get in my head, but you might get something entirely different. Is it almost two minutes before any singing anything happens? I think it might be.

It’s pretty close.

Yeah. So I love the idea that people would be in their own heads, forming their own image, and then those first lines of the lyric basically start a dance with whatever people have started to see – whatever sort of concept people are starting to get. And then basically a ship moves on the horizon, in the form of the character of Mama. You start wondering who’s telling the story, who’s the guy that comes into the song in the second verse, and what they’re all up to.

I found on this record that your stories kind of reveal themselves over time. I felt like there are narratives in these songs and it’s a pretty complete statement. Do you look at it as a concept album?

Sure, but I also think an album that is void of concept should be regarded with high suspicion. I think any album worth listening to is a concept record. You know, I understand what people mean by “concept record,” almost like a piece of musical theater, without acting or whatever. While I don’t feel like there is a linear narrative, there is absolutely a narrative that is meant to be heard from start to finish, in sequence. We wrote it that way.

We also pointedly wanted to make sure that it still made sense in vignettes, which is how most people listen to things these days. They put their phones on shuffle or whatever. Just because that’s not the way I like to listen to music doesn’t mean that’s not the correct way to do it. So we wanted to make sure that the songs could stand on their own, but I think when experienced together, they might add up to a little bit more than when they’re listened to in short bursts.

How do the instrumentals kind of factor in this? If I’ve learned anything from your Ryman show, I need to find the recipe for the Jungle Bird and Three Dots & A Dash. Tiki drinks, right?

Yeah, Tiki culture has been one of my muses for a couple of years now but this is the first record where it’s really come to the fore. There are two different rum references in the lyrics, one in “All Ashore,” one in “Jumbo.” And of course “Three Dots & A Dash” and “Jungle Bird” are a great old-school Tiki cocktails. I feel that basically the relation is two-fold. One is that Tiki culture represents one of America’s most shameless escapist gestures. It doesn’t pretend to solve anything; it just spirits you away, no pun intended.

But what I find, ironically, is that it’s in the midst of one of those escapist gestures that I find myself able to start thinking clearly about some of the things that are troubling me. And I think my bandmates would agree. A lot of people start getting to the meat and potatoes of a topic, in communion with their fellow man, right around when the second round hits the table.

You’ve made that initial escape to the point that you can actually see your life, and our lives as a society, with a little bit of perspective. You can get a little distance from it and might actually start being able to see it for what it is, and start asking yourself the harder questions. Not that you are expecting answers, but to even just ask the question, I think, and to discuss the various questions turning over in your collective minds is a worthy exercise. So all of these lyrics are the result of that kind of conversation. And so, naming those two instrumentals after Tiki drinks is symbolic of those conversations.

I like the fact that you sing in falsetto, because it can really expand where you go with your vocal, and the melody too, for that matter. Why does that falsetto voice appeal to you with the music you are making?

We’re chasing achieving the melodies we hear. If we limited the melodies that we wrote to what fits in my vocal range, my full-voice vocal range, we’d be far more limited than if we expanded to include falsetto. Something like the “Angel of Doubt” melody, for instance, we didn’t start that off going, “Yeah, you know what would be cool is if you sang about half the time in falsetto.” It’s just that’s where the melodies were headed. Also I think there’s a sensitivity and an intimacy to falsetto, to my ear. It’s almost like a request to come closer. A sort of intimacy to it that even if the melody starts taking us thither, then maybe I’ll start considering what lyrics are going to be sung in falsetto. Like if I’m going to deliver this in falsetto, then that comes in a certain character.

I find that interesting that you mentioned character. That must be refreshing to sometimes write from a perspective that isn’t necessarily yours. Is that the case?

Oh, I find it necessary to my sanity. I feel like if I were invariably seeing the world from my own perspective, it’s experientially incestuous or something. I crave seeing the world through other people’s eyes. To me, good art always lifts me out of my experience of the world and places me in someone else’s. And then I see things a little bit more clearly with each great piece of art that I encounter. That the lyric changes the perspective, even within the songs, I think that exposes a certain preference on my part, I’ll say. Or a certain hunger for multiple perspectives.

Even like “Jumbo,” for instance, even though that is satire, clearly, it’s trying to make a point. I think it’s a fairly clear indictment of the perspective from which it’s coming. Even still, part of that is an attempt to understand where that perspective is coming from.

That song went over pretty well at the Ryman. How is “Jumbo” treating you out on tour? Are people responding to it well?

[Laughs] I think so. I think it is probably difficult to get all the words, live, so it’s always amusing to see what people react to. And sometimes I think they might be reacting to something that if they were to see the lyric on paper, or what the actual statement is, maybe they might still laugh but they wouldn’t whoop and holler about it. It’s interesting how much tension is in the air right now. For us, as a society, there’s so much tension in the air you can cut it with a knife. And so a song like “Jumbo,” or “Just Look at This Mess,” and maybe “It’s All Part of the Plan” as well, it lets some of the tension out. Hopefully it can be cathartic for people who are completely mystified by the state of our country and our world right now.

Illustration: Zachary Johnson
Photo credit: Josh Goleman

Punch Brothers’ Noam Pikelny: Getting Inside the Story

Posted on by Editor

Noam Pikelny has a dry delivery only when he’s joking around. But as banjo player in Punch Brothers, his playing is crisp, inventive, and in step with his colleagues. This is especially true on All Ashore, a new release that explores the personal challenges of relationships as well as the growing political divide in America. This year he’s nominated for IBMA Banjo Player of the Year, while his two previous solo albums earned Grammy nominations. His Twitter bio sums it up: “Widely considered the world’s premier color blind banjoist. Punch Brother.”

This interview is the fourth of five installments as the Bluegrass Situation salutes the Artist of the Month: Punch Brothers.

When I was at your show at the Ryman, you were usually turned toward the band but I could never tell if you were singing. Do you sing with the guys on the songs?

I sing on a few things, but not much on this record. I actually don’t think I sing any harmony on this record.

Is that by choice or have they tried to convince you otherwise? Why is that?

Usually, like when I’m singing at all, it’s because we have like five part harmony going on. And I think it has to do with my range. I have the most limited vocal range of anybody in the band. But that was how I was born. I was born that way, it’s not my fault! … And then on the one song I sang on, on the last record, they invited everybody else in the universe to sing on it. On the song “Little Lights” that was on The Phosphorescent Blues. And so I think it essentially the policy that if Noam is allowed to sing, then everybody is allowed to sing. It’s only fair to have a one-hundred person overdub. I can’t hear myself because of all these people.

A couple of you have mentioned what’s going on in the country right now as inspiration. I think it’s on everyone’s mind, but why does it seem like a good inspiration for a song? Like “Jumbo,” for example. Why do you think it lent itself to writing a song?

Well, I think on a more macro level, I think it’s really important to be sticking to your guns. I think a lot of people are demoralized and questioning whether what they’re creating or what they’re doing for a living is valid in times when it seems like a lot of them are under assault. I know for me personally that having an opportunity to make music with musical co-patriots was very crucial. I feel like there’s such division right now in this country. I think people are thriving on families being alienated from each other. You think of the Thanksgiving dinner that becomes so troublesome. Friends are becoming alienated through all kinds of political differences and I feel like our sense of community and our sense of comradery as a whole is kind of under assault.

I think parsing through what’s going on in our lives right now, a solo project can be quite lonely. I think we find strength in working with each other and we have the ability to hone our thoughts with each other around, as far as what’s important to us and what we want to say. For “Jumbo” in particular, why does this make for good music? Or why is this musical inspiration? I ultimately thought that these people are like the protagonists that are Jumbo and his cohorts, they spend most of their time celebrating themselves. And we just wanted to get in on the action and celebrate them as well. So it’s really a celebration, more than anything.

It’s a fun melody if you just listen at the surface level. How’s it going over live? It seems like one that people would be responding to?

I think people are responding to a lot of it. [Playing live] is a huge component of the musical journey of this music. Making a record is obviously the most concrete and typical manifestations of the music. But the journey really is just beginning once that’s finished and we start playing it live, getting audience feedback, and shaping the song for the live experience. We’re flattered that people are enjoying it and starting to know the words.

Gabe that told me that you have a good story from being on Letterman. Do you have a minute to tell that story?

Oh, I’m not sure exactly what he’s referring to. I mean we got to go on Letterman about eight to nine years ago and play with Steve Martin. He announced that he was doing this yearly banjo award – it seems like a long time ago, it was nine years ago now. So, it was one of the more surreal experiences of a lifetime, getting to be up there with Steve Martin and Dave Letterman.

You were the first one to get that award. I remember when that started. Since then, a lot of your peers have been recognized. This sounds like a weird question, but is there like a banjo community or like an instant friendship when you meet another banjo player?

Um, there’s a secret banjo cult that meets in a cave in Horse Mouth, Kentucky, on the third Saturday of every month. And everyone’s totally cloaked and in these robes that are covered in banjo tablature… No, there’s no secret society – or if there is, I haven’t been invited yet which probably makes sense. But I think there’s an instant kinship with anybody else who’s pursuing music as their life’s work. And I think any instrumentalist, you always want to pow-wow and talk about their techniques and who they studied with, so I think there’s an extension in that way.

I wanted to ask you about songwriting collaboration. The way I understand is that everybody wrote the music together and then crafted the stories on top of the music. Is that pretty accurate? What was the process like?

We write the music instrumentally first, as a band, and that’s often with the five of us in the room. Oftentimes, Thile will be kind of singing, just gibberish, or a few words he has stuck in his head that associates with that music. Sometimes, those couple words will become the kernel of the song, and we’ll shape it around that. He often goes off and starts writing lyrics and brings it back for collective input, and we’ll help edit and shape the lyrics.

Sometimes we’ll have late-night discussions over cocktails or a drink, talking about what’s going on in our lives, whether it’s our familial environment or what’s going on in the world right now, and he’ll go off and try to capture that collective thought into a lyric. So it’s always different, but interestingly in Punch Brothers, the lyrics almost always come last. We write placeholder lyrics first, then that’s the final but obviously very crucial element.

Are you a good lyricist? Do you enjoy contributing in that way?

I don’t consider myself a true lyricist. I really do enjoy the process of working with the lyricist. And I feel it’s an effective kind of partnership to them to have Thile leading the charge in that way, but then having this kind of counsel for feedback that can be brutally honest.

You just got married this year right?

Correct. A few months ago.

So this album has a song like “All Ashore,” which is about a relationship falling apart, but then you’re a newlywed. In order to get into a character, do you have to set your personal life out of mind when you perform a song like that? How do you separate the two?

Well, no, I think “All Ashore” isn’t about the collapse. It’s more about the challenges. It’s the struggle and the ups and downs, the ebb and flow, to quote the song itself. But you know, when we get up and play a song like “Molly and Tenbrooks,” which is a racehorse song, I don’t feel like I have to identify personally with the jockeys or the horses … but I think it’s really important to get inside the story of the song and as you perform it, you can really deliver the intent of it.

And so there might be a difference of whoever is the lead singer. You’d have to ask Chris how it’s different, whether it’s sung from the first person, or a narrator, or an actor. All of those roles probably come into play on different material and especially on covers that we do. … I think you can emphasis the story even if you don’t see yourself in that story. That’s the case in music and in real life. I think being an instrumentalist, I’m trying to support the singer by helping him deliver the intent of the song. I make the story more vivid through the way that I play it.

Illustration: Zachary Johnson

Punch Brothers’ Paul Kowert: Musically Driven

Posted on by Editor

Paul Kowert came on board as bassist for the Punch Brother about 10 years ago, stepping into a band of musicians he knew casually but admired greatly. In the following decade, he’s gained even more visibility in the world of acoustic music through his band Hawktail and a gig as bassist for David Rawlings Machine. His versatility is reflected in the list of bassists he cites as influences: Edgar Meyer, Mark Schatz, and Roy Milton “Junior” Huskey. He’s quick to admit that he’s not a lyricist, yet his musical contributions definitely shape the undercurrent of Punch Brothers’ newest album, All Ashore.

This interview is the second of five installments as the Bluegrass Situation salutes the Artist of the Month: Punch Brothers.

I really like the bass line of “Just Look at This Mess.” What do you think that song is about? Tell me what you were hoping to capture in that song.

Well, I might as well cut to the chase here and say that I don’t really engage a whole lot with the lyrics, personally. I listen to them and everything, but in terms of my interaction with the music, I get most of what I need from just getting inside my bandmates’ musical expression. I attach to a feeling that comes with the way that they’re playing and they’re singing. That’s pretty much the extent of it. The songs have a trajectory that can be strictly musical. That’s how I interact with the songs.

That’s interesting, so you’re listening for the feeling. To me, that song seems ominous and disturbing. What kind of feelings did you hear in that song?

That song is divided into three segments that are really contrasting, but at the beginning, I think it’s simple enough to say that I can feel how Thile wants the song to feel, just by the way he’s playing the mandolin and the way he’s manipulating his voice. And you know, the sound of the words is as important as the feeling. And it’s all really the same thing. Like the sibilance and how long he holds on to an “s,” and where he places a hard consonant in the beat. That’s as expressive as anything to me. I latch onto those kinds of things.

If I had to put it into words – which I never have – I wanted it to sit there, like a … well, like a mess on the floor, you know? I mean, that’s not necessarily the meaning, per se, of the storyline necessarily. But he’s saying, “Just look at this mess.” And where he’s placing the mandolin, and the way that melody sounds, and the way he’s singing it…. For me as a bass player, I wanted the bass and the mandolin to kind of combine, to make something that didn’t really have any forward drive. It sits there. So, that’s my response.

I saw you at the Ryman, and I couldn’t help but notice how often you were brought up to the front, in comparison to some bands I see where the bass is always hovering in the back. And I wondered just how much time and thought goes into the staging — you know, where everybody’s going to stand during the songs?

It’s all musically driven. It has to do with how you monitor on stage, which means how you hear your band members and yourself. And the sound coming out of the speakers. That’s what I mean by monitoring. So, putting me in the middle makes the bass sonically accessible to everyone on stage somewhat. But also, it puts me in a position where I can get into the vocal mic. ‘Cause I sing harmony sometimes. And it puts me in a place where I can lock with my two most consistent rhythm counterparts, which are the mandolin and the guitar.

I can always hear Gabe on the fiddle, because he kinda occupies his own sonic space. And the banjo, I just put into my in-ear monitor so I can hear Noam. And sometimes I walk over there to hear him. Like I said, it’s all musically driven. It’s so we can hear each other and play together. And just play the best music that we can play.

You mentioned singing harmony. A lot of people talk about the musicianship, which is excellent, but do you think that vocal blend is also important to the Punch Brothers’ sound and vibe?

It’s something that we focus a lot on because we’re better players than we are singers. During soundcheck, we spend a lot of our time focusing on getting the vocals sounding better, because we need to. That’s just where we need to spend our time. It demands the most of our attention. But that’s because the playing is easier for us. In terms of whether it’s an important part of the sound, yeah, anything with vocals, the vocals suck up a lot of your attention, right?

But also, the way our music is written, the performance of the vocals, the precision, and blend of the vocals is an important factor. …. When you hear multiple voices come together singing, it’s a powerful thing. It’s just the way that across the board. It’s not just the Punch Brothers, it’s everybody who does that. Voices coming together in harmony – that’s a powerful thing.


How did you become interested in playing bass? What drew you to that instrument?

I was in violin, then when I was nine, I wanted to start playing another instrument to participate in the strings program [at] my elementary school. My friends were all starting an instrument for the first time, so I wanted to do that, too. So, I started playing the bass as well as the violin. I was just having more fun playing the bass, so I just stuck with the bass and I put the fiddle down for a while. In recent years, I picked it back up, and I play fiddle music on it now.

Plus, you know, as a young person it was fun for me to play the bass, because I could play in a rock ‘n’ roll band. I could play Paul Simon music or The Beatles on electric bass. And upright bass in a jazz combo, with a trumpet, drum set, and a guitar player or a keyboard player. And that was a social thing, that was fun, and it was musically expressive. I enjoyed playing bass for the collaborative reasons as much as anything.

I know you’ve got Hawktail still, and you’re touring David Rawlings Machine. I can imagine it’s a challenge to balance three different things. Is that hard for you or does it come pretty naturally?

Oh no, it’s hard. But it would be harder for me not to do it. To put it simply, Hawktail affords me a chance to pursue sounds that I really hear. I do more writing for that group myself. It’s instrumental music and I’m primarily an instrumentalist. It gives a chance to really let my instrument be the voice. Simply put, that’s the differentiation.

And playing with Dave and Gillian, these are just people I admire. I really love their music. And it’s a different angle, sort of, on a similar instrumentation. It’s a somewhat similar well of influences in the grand scheme of thing, maybe. You know, they wanted a bass and I’m not going to turn that down!

Illustration: Zachary Johnson
Photo: Courtesy of Red Light Management

Punch Brothers’ Gabe Witcher: Finding Narratives

Posted on by Editor

Gabe Witcher, the fiddle player – and some might say secret weapon – in Punch Brothers, has been a performer for nearly his whole life. As a kid, he toured the Southwest playing bluegrass with his family’s band; that’s how he met Chris Thile, forming a musical friendship that has spanned more than three decades. Though his stage presence is low-key, his musicianship is undeniable, playing as joyously or mournfully as a song requires. This is also true on Punch Brothers’ newest album, All Ashore.

In this interview, Witcher kicks off a five-part series as the Bluegrass Situation salutes the Artist of the Month: Punch Brothers.

I love the fiddle part you play on “Three Dots and a Dash.” I was wondering, how much of your music is arranged when you go in to record, or how much of it unfolds by feel when you’re in the studio?

Yeah, this record is a lot different than our previous records. We really had the bare minimum amount of time to get it done. Historically, there is a good deal of improvising on all, throughout our music, and so that’s always spontaneous every time we play – in the studio, out of the studio, whatever. But there is a good deal of highly-arranged stuff as well and historically that stuff would have been written and rehearsed for months leading up to getting into the studio … and we just didn’t have that luxury this time. So, while there’s a good deal of arranged things on the record, it all kind of came together in the studio anyway.

“Three Dots” is a good example where we had the form, we had the melodies, we knew “this is how the arrangement is going to unfold, this is who plays when, this is what the song’s going to do” when we got into the studio and played it a few times – and didn’t like it. So, we put the brakes on recording and went and huddled up in one of the corners of the studio for three or four hours and completely reworked the entire middle section of the song. From post-middle-solo until when the melody returns at the end.

It’s just one of those things: “This isn’t good enough yet, so let’s make it good enough.” When we did, when we finally got something we liked and went back in and recorded it, a lot of that section, I’d say it’s about 50/50 arranged and improvised. Solos are improvised, but we got something that we absolutely loved and that all happened in the moment in the studio. That is a new thing. That has never happened to us before because we had always historically gone in super prepared with, “This is the music, this is what it’s going to be.”

One of the things I love about this record is that what you’re hearing on the record is the first time any of these songs were performed to our satisfaction. You’re getting the excitement of us discovering this music and playing it for the first time. That’s always an exciting thing to hear.

Yeah. So you said bare minimum. What was the timeframe for this?

Oh, let’s see. I think we wrote the record in about four weeks. Not all together. We had three days in October, we had eight days in December and then two weeks in February to get it all situated. Then we recorded it over the course of three weeks in March. And then mixed in April.

The Phosphorescent Blues took almost three years to write. We had the luxury of writing it over the course of three years not work every day, of course. We might have worked twelve weeks total on it, but we had the chance to sit with things and revise, and change, and live with it. This one was more of a “Let’s just get it out.” And I think it worked to our benefit because everything feels super fresh on the record.

I read that you played on the score for Brokeback Mountain and Babel – and they both won the Oscar for best original score. Do you think there’s a cinematic component to Punch Brothers’ arrangements as well?

Yeah, absolutely there is. That’s a comment we get quite frequently. It’s not intentional, but I think everyone is in love with trying to find narratives that can happen instrumentally along with a lyrical narrative. We’re always trying to find textures and new ways to approach presenting musical ideas and finding interesting ways of getting you from point A to point B. I think there’s a definite classical music influence in that regard. Not only is the music supporting the lyrics in a vocal as it would in folk-based or pop music, but the music itself is also helping to create the narratives.

You in particular have a bluegrass background, from playing in your family’s band. How did that prepare you for this experience of touring with Punch Brothers?

Surprisingly enough, doing that is how Chris and I met. We met at a festival called Follows Camp Bluegrass Festival that happened in Southern California. My family would always go up and camp and play and my dad would emcee a lot of the time at that festival. There was a contest and our family band got booked to play it. I think it was the second year or the second time it happened. A 5-year-old Chris Thile just happened to be there that time. As he tells it, he saw me playing onstage with my dad and was like, “Oh my God, that’s so cool. Another kid plays!”

After we got done, we were introduced and immediately became friends. I think we played baseball in the road that ran along the campground, then spent the rest of the time playing tunes with each other. Doing that led directly, a couple decades later, to this band becoming a thing. Of course, you can’t discount the years and years and years spent learning the craft of playing, and playing in an ensemble, and performing. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’s a unique way to grow up.

The good news is, I got all the … well, not all, but a good portion of the dues-paying out of the way before I even knew I was paying any dues, so by the time I was out of high school I had a level of proficiency as a professional that most people don’t have the luxury of gaining until they are well into their 20s. I was able to hit the ground running. I went to college as well, for music, but I’ve got to say: music was there all along. The only thing that changed was that I finished school. So that went away but the music continued.

You were able to play with Bill Monroe as a kid, too, right?

Yeah, when I was 6, we were at the Strawberry Music Festival. This is the thing that launched the family band. My folks decided that we were going to go up to the Strawberry Music Festival, which at that time happened in Yosemite, California. I had been playing for almost a year at that point. We just went to camp and hang out and check it out. One of the days my dad and I were jamming at the campground, and people wandered around the campground, so people were coming in to listen. Then they’d wander off.

Monroe was playing that night at the festival. He was headlining the show that night and they had gotten him to do a workshop during the day, a mandolin workshop. My dad took me over to that. I didn’t know who that guy was. He was just some old guy up there playing. There were a couple hundred people at this workshop listening to Monroe, and right towards the end, and my dad would probably remember better than I do, but somehow, someone pointed me out and said, “Have you heard this guy play? You should pick a tune with him, Monroe.” And so Monroe got me onstage and he and I played a tune called “Gold Rush.” It’s actually one Byron Berline wrote when he was in Monroe’s band.

So Monroe and I played that tune and I got a pretty cool picture with Monroe afterwards. Then, later that day, probably because of that, the Strawberry folks asked if my dad and I would do what they call a ‘tweener set, where you go up and play two or three songs in between the main stage bands. So, Hot Rize was playing and then New Grass Revival was going to play after that. I think this was the day after Monroe played. So my dad was like, “Yeah, sure! Yeah, we’ll work up three songs.” So he grabbed a bass player and a guitar player and also asked Byron if he would sit in on the solo. And so we got up and played three songs, and Byron came out, and we played “Gold Rush” together. And it was so much fun, my dad said, “Hey, do you want to do this more?” And I said, “Sure!”

Illustration: Zachary Johnson
Photo: Courtesy of Red Light Management

Kittel & Co., ‘Chrysalis’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s hard to say if humankind will ever know exactly how a caterpillar goes about shedding its skin, digesting itself, turning into a primordial soup, and then transforming its own goo into a resplendent butterfly or moth, but the entirety of this process happens in one of two places: inside a cocoon or a chrysalis.

Whorls, an eleven-tune elemental soup of its own, invites listeners to envelop themselves in the cozy, metamorphic trappings that Kittel & Co. explored as they fashioned a new identity from their harlequin musical backgrounds and experiences. Led by fiddler, composer, and virtuoso Jeremy Kittel, the outfit has accomplished a feat of new acoustic, string band-rooted chamber music that isn’t simply as mind-boggling and intangible as the inner workings of a butterfly’s transfiguration; it’s as whimsical, alluring, and magnificent, too. “Chrysalis” begins with Simon Chrisman’s bounding hammered dulcimer, contemplative and exciting, while the ensemble chimes in one by one, in dialogue, building and deconstructing the silky hook together, ever dipping back into the melodic soup to transform the song into newer, grander, wilder, softer, shimmering versions of itself.

It becomes abundantly clear, as “Chrysalis” ebbs and flows, wriggling to life, that from top to bottom, Whorls is as if innumerable chrysalises were arranged like nesting dolls, with each subsequent transformation revealing a more surprising, captivating conversion building up to and succeeding each magical metamorphosis it contains.