Punch Brothers

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Punch Brothers
The Punch Brothers 2008 with the new bassist Paul Kowert
The Punch Brothers 2008 with the new bassist Paul Kowert
General information
origin United States
Genre (s) Progressive bluegrass
founding 2006
Website www.punchbrothers.com
Current occupation
Mandolin , singing
Gift Witcher
 Violin , vocals
Noam Pikely
 Banjo , singing,
Chris Eldridge
 Guitar , vocals
Paul Kowert
 Bass , vocals
former members
Bryan Sutton (guitar), Greg Garrison (bass)
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Antifogmatic
  US 128 07/03/2010 (1 week)
Who's Feeling Young Now?
  US 76 03/03/2012 (1 week)
Ahoy! (EP)
  US 144 December 01, 2012 (1 week)
The Phosphorescent Blues
  US 37 02/14/2015 (1 week)

The Punch Brothers are an American band around mandolinist Chris Thile . The current line-up consists of Noam Pikely (banjo), Chris Eldridge (guitar), Gabe Witcher (fiddle, violin) and Paul Kowert (bass).

The formation has its roots in bluegrass . It is considered a progressive representative of the genre and a kind of " supergroup " of the American acoustic music scene. The typical bluegrass line-up processes influences from pop, rock and classical music beyond genre boundaries.

history

How to Grow a Woman from the Ground

For the recording of the album How to Grow a Woman from the Ground , Thile gathered a group of musicians around him in 2006, who initially called themselves How to Grow a Band . Thile describes the first meeting and the idea of ​​the band in an interview:

“We [Thile and his childhood friend Gabe Witcher] hung out together one night just to spend a lot of money, drink too much wine, eat steaks, and feel sorry for each other about our failed relationships. We had played together a few days earlier and said we had to do something together musically. With our broken hearts, it became more urgent - our lives had been the same for a long time. I knew that I wanted a band with Gabe, but I didn't know if it would be a rock ensemble, an ambitious acoustic-classical thing or a bluegrass group. "

At the Telluride Bluegrass Festival he met the banjo virtuoso Noam Pikely :

“We played and there was a serious, immediate connection. That's when I realized that I wanted to put together a bluegrass band - one with a lot of leeway, but a bluegrass band in terms of looks and sound. "

Pikely invited guitarist Chris “Critter” Eldridge and bassist Greg Garrison to their sessions in Nashville. How to Grow a Woman from the Ground was released as a solo album on Thile's Sugar Hill label. The title song was originally written by the American singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau . In addition to typical bluegrass numbers ( Jimmie Rodgers Brakeman 's Blues ), the first album features cover versions of Jack White ( Dead Leaves and the dirty ground ) and the Strokes ( Heart in a cage ). It not only declines the themes of “failed relationships” and “new beginnings” ( I'm yours, if you want me ), but also marks the range of musical influences that are transformed into the bluegrass character of the album.

Punch

In 2007 the band renamed itself Punch Brothers . The name comes from the story A Literary Nightmare by Mark Twain , which is about a suggestive jingle that spreads like a catchy tune and which was originally a kind of swearing mantra of the railway conductors : “Punch, brothers, punch with care, punch in the presence of the passtjare! "

That same year, Thiles' original formation Nickel Creek announced an unlimited break and Nonesuch Records signed the Punch Brothers. In February 2008 the band went on a nationwide tour. At the end of the month Punch was released , the first album under the new band name. It contains, among other things, the Thile composition The Blind Leaving The Blind , a suite in four "Movements" in which Thile deals with the divorce from his first wife. The composition premiered in March 2007 at New York's Carnegie Hall . Thile, who had worked on the ambitious work for a good year with the help of composition software ( Finale ), describes it as an attempt to combine elements of classical composition, jazz patterns and free improvisation.

In November of that year bassist Paul Kowert, a student of Edgar Meyer , joined the band to replace Greg Garrison.

Antifogmatic

In 2010 Antifogmatic was released , in which the now tour-proven new bassist can be heard for the first time on the band's studio recordings. The album was produced by Jon Brion . It is named after a rum or whiskey-based drink, a kind of grog from the 19th century, which is supposed to provide adequate protection and defense in fog and other adverse weather conditions. Thile sees the character of the songs on the album in a similar way, which this time were increasingly developed in co-production. It contains, among other things, rye whiskey , as an original and stirring bluegrass number, the structure and lyric (chorus vs verse) of which typically embodies the idea of ​​an "anti-dogmatic" effect, and the relationship burlesque Next to the Trash as a bluegrass waltz. The album concludes with Thiles This is the Song (Good Luck) , which in turn sings about the separation problem and conjures up nautical metaphors (“before i set sails”).

The deluxe version of Antifogmatic contains the EP "All of This Is True" with four additional songs. In addition, two bonus tracks were offered for download: the band's first Radiohead cover: “Packs Like Sardines In a Crush'd Tin Box” and “New Chance Blues”, which won the 2010 Grammy in the Best Country Instrumental category Performance was nominated.

The DVD for the album Live from the Lower East Side: It's p-Bingo Night! shows the band live in their New York rehearsal studio and, apart from This is the song, contains other new material, including an adaptation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerts (3rd concert, 3rd movement Allegro ).

In 2011 the documentary How to Grow A Band premiered at the Nashville Film Festival. The director Mark Meatto , who was already responsible for the live DVD mentioned, had accompanied the band and their development over several years.

Who's Feeling Young Now?

In 2012, the third album, Who's Feeling Young Now? and the EP Ahoy! . The American musician and record producer T Bone Burnett now considers the Punch Brothers to be "one of the best contemporary bands".

Punch Brothers live 2015

The Phosphorescent Blues

Burnett was the producer for the album The Phosphorescent Blues , which will be released on January 27, 2015 . The band last worked with the renowned producer on the soundtrack for Inside Llewyn Davis in 2013 . The album thematizes the depths of modern, digital communication in contrast to direct experience and direct contact with the audience at a live concert. The title quotes a line from Little Lights , the last track on the album: "Singing the phosphorescent pinks and blues". Thile describes the view from the stage into the darkness of a smartphone-armed audience that seems to be more busy documenting the current event than directly participating in it. A picture by the Belgian painter René Magritte ( Die Liebenden 2 ) was used for the cover . In the run-up to the release, the band asked their fans to digitally sing the chorus of the final piece Little Lights using a prepared sequence. The resulting submissions were finally mixed into the finished recording: This created a reinforcing choir effect, which forms the end of the album.

The presentation of the album in Europe also led the band to a free concert in Bremen. When the Punch Brothers first visited Germany in 2012, they played concerts in Hamburg, Berlin and Cologne.

All Ashore

In February 2018, recordings for a new album took place. All Ashore , the band's first self-produced album, was released on July 20, 2018. The thematic focus of the nine songs on the album is, according to Thile, "... thinking about binding relationships today, especially in the current political climate" .

In November 2018 the Punch Brothers performed in Ludwigshafen and the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie . All Ashore was named Best Folk Album at the 2019 Grammy Awards .

Members

The band sees itself as a collective that mostly works on its material together. The band is based in Brooklyn .

  • Chris Thile : The MacArthur Fellow honored musician is considered one of the best mandolinists ever. With the Punch Brothers he takes over the main part of the solo vocals, both in the standards and in the melodically and harmonically more complex original compositions of the band.
  • Gabe Witcher: a childhood friend of Thiles, comes from California like this one; Witcher is considered a sought-after session musician
  • Chris Eldridge: The Infamous Stringdusters , The Seldom Scene, Duo with Julien Lage
  • Noam Pikely: Leftover Salmon, John Cowan Band, solo, award-winning banjo player, most recently IBMA "Banjoplayer of the Year" 2014.
  • Paul Kowert: plays alongside the Punch Brothers in the Haas, Kowert & Tice trio, in summer 2014 he was in a duo with Aoife O'Donovan .

Discography

  • How to Grow a Woman from the Ground (2006, Sugar Hill)

In Nonesuch Records release date:

  • Punch (2008)
  • Antifogmatic (2010)
  • Who's Feeling Young Now? (2012)
  • Ahoy! ( EP , 2012)
  • The Phosphorescent Blues (2015)
  • The Wireless (EP, 2015)
  • All Ashore (2018)

Concert films

  • Live from the Lower East Side: It's p-Bingo Night! , DVD, director: Mark Meatto, producer: Michael Bohlmann. Live recording of 7 songs. Recorded in New York in 2009.

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Punch Brothers on the US charts
  2. ↑ Brittney McKenna tentatively describes this range as “Hirn-Kammer-Folk”: “Not strictly bluegrass, not strictly folk, not strictly Americana, the band could perhaps best be described as cerebral chamber folk, influenced as much by Radiohead and Bach as they are Gillian Welch and Jimmie Rodgers. " Mumford & Sons Aren't the Voice of Modern Folk Music - Punch Brothers Are , Music.Mic, February 3, 2015, accessed February 11, 2015
  3. ↑ Quote translated from: Nickel Creek's Thile 'grows' a new band . Nashville City Paper . August 23, 2006. Archived from the original on August 26, 2006. Retrieved on October 13, 2007.
  4. ↑ Quote translated from: Nickel Creek's Thile 'grows' a new band . Nashville City Paper . August 23, 2006. Archived from the original on August 26, 2006. Retrieved on October 13, 2007.
  5. ↑ Nickel Creek's Thile 'grows' a new band . Nashville City Paper . August 23, 2006. Archived from the original on August 26, 2006. Retrieved on October 13, 2007.
  6. ↑ For example: Snap, brothers, snap carefully, snap in the passenger's presence - the strongly rhythmic, almost hypnotic poem is about train tickets. See English Wikipedia: A Literary Nightmare . German translation on Project Gutenberg : Brothers, snap in! From the sketchbook, chap. 10. The first-person narrator is freed from the affliction of the jingle by transferring it to a clergyman who in turn has to live with the plague.
  7. ^ Nonesuch Records Signs Singer / Composer / Mandolinist Chris Thile and His New Band, Punch Brothers . All about jazz . October 9, 2007. Archived from the original on December 25, 2007. Retrieved October 10, 2007.
  8. ^ Punch Brothers Add a New Bass Player ( Memento from April 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), homepage of the band, communication from November 8, 2008
  9. ↑ About This Album Presentation of the album on Nonesuch.com, April 14, 2010, accessed February 7, 2015
  10. ↑ cf. Lyrics on azlyrics.com
  11. ↑ Album Review , Jonathan Keefe on Slantmagazine, June 13, 2010, accessed February 7, 2015
  12. ↑ Lyrics on azlyrics.com
  13. ↑ This is the song from: Live from the Lower East Side , Nonesuch on youtube
  14. ↑ English Wikipedia: Antifogmatic
  15. ↑ How to Grow a Band (Film Review) ( Memento January 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Dustin Ogdin for No Depression , May 19, 2011, accessed January 24, 2015
  16. ↑ Who's Feeling Young Now? , Review by Guiliano Benasso on laut.de (2012), accessed on January 24, 2015
  17. ↑ Lyrics on azlyrics.com
  18. ↑ Preference for bluegrass, classical and pop. Band Punch Brothers , swr2 - impulse, January 30, 2015, accessed February 7, 2015; audio, (8:09 min .; 7.46 MB)
  19. ↑ A word is worth a thousand pictures. Punch Brothers interview with Guliano Benassi for laut.de, February 3, 2015, accessed on February 7
  20. ↑ Punch Brothers: The Naturals , Relix Magazine interview with Thile on the new album from January 14, 2015 (excerpt in English), accessed on January 24, 2015
  21. ↑ Hello, My Vocal-Cord-and-Internet-Having Lovelies! : Call on the band's website ( Memento from February 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  22. ↑ Radio Bremen cultural calendar for January 26, 2015 ( Memento of January 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ^ Punch Brothers: The Bluegrass Hurricane from New York . Radio recording of the concert on Bayern 2, May 22, 2015, accessed on May 26, 2015 ( Memento from May 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  24. ↑ Tour dates on bandsintown.com
  25. ↑ Punch Brothers on Instagram, February 26, 2018
  26. ^ Announcement in the Nonesuch Records Journal, June 14, 2018
  27. ↑ Punch Brothers release on July 20th. her new album "All Ashore" , warnermusic.de, June 19, 2018
  28. ↑ Snappy comment on our time , The Punch Brothers: "All Ashore" review by Juliane Reil for deutschlandfunkkultur.de (accessed on 27 July 2018), 25 July 2018
  29. ↑ Tour dates on punchbrothers.com
  30. ↑ Elbphilharmonie: Punch Brothers inspire with bluegrass , concert report on the performance in the Elbphilharmonie in the Hamburger Abendblatt , November 19, 2018 (accessed on February 12, 2019)
  31. ↑ Grammy Awards 2019 - Winner , Country.de, February 11, 2019 (accessed February 12, 2019)