Daily Telegraph: Punch Brothers Take Bluegrass into New Territory

Punch Brothers and their Nonesuch debut, Punch, are featured on this week's edition of NPR's All Songs Considered, along with label mate Toumani Diabate and his latest, The Mande Variations. Listen now online at npr.org/music or download the podcast.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph (UK), music critic Ivan Hewett places the members of Punch Brothers "among America's folk music elite," describing them this way: "All five are virtuoso players who can toss off the wild, high-speed improvisations for which bluegrass is famous."

Even with bluegrass as their common experiential thread, Hewett recognizes that with Punch, the band is "taking bluegrass into new territory." In an interview with the Telegraph, Chris Thile explains what he was looking to do with his latest effort and why.

"I want to enlarge the palette," Thile says. "I think it's a desire of modern musicians to complete the musical characteristics of whatever tradition they've grown up in."

Thile and the band, Hewett concludes, are succeeding in their efforts:

It's a delicate task, to renew a tradition without destroying the very thing that makes it special. But on the evidence of their first album the Punch Brothers are well on the way to achieving it.

To read the article, visit telegraph.co.uk.

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