Feb. 26--Punch Brothers' co-founder Chris Thile describes his band's music in violent terms -- slaps and ice baths get mentioned. But it's all good, because it's all about channeling the world's musical consciousness. Confused? Let Thile explain:
"When a show is going well, you are tapping into some sort of global music collective, because you are so earnestly trying to interact with a massive collective of people who love music," he says. "I'd love to think of a Punch Brothers show as a little chapter meeting in a particular town each night -- 'the Oberlin, Ohio, chapter meeting of the world wide collective of people who love music.' You're all welcome to come. We all need each other and we all need music, especially now when it's so tempting to relegate music to almost a therapy role. Music has become something that we need to calm us down, comfort us, anything but challenge us. In actuality what we need is to be really engaged. We need something to smack us in the face a few times, give us an ice bath, and make us realize that we needed that ice bath."
Thile is enough of a bluegrass traditionalist to have recently served as only the second guest host in the history of Garrison Keillor's long-running public-radio institution "A Prairie Home Companion." And he's out there enough as a musician to make Punch Brothers albums a bit of an adventure, even for fans of his previous band, Nickel Creek.
The Punch Brothers' latest release, "The Phosphorescent Blues" (Nonesuch), is a typical genre-busting melange of avant-roots music that fuses jazz instrumental chops and acoustic earthiness, Beach Boys harmonies and Debussy string dances, slinky acoustic rock songs and blues laments.
Thile is an accomplished mandolin player who started playing professionally at age 7 while growing up in California. The next year, he formed Nickel Creek with his childhood friends Sara and Sean Watkins, which became one of the most popular acoustic bands of the last two decades. When the band went on hiatus in 2007 (it reformed to make an album last year), Thile put together an acoustic quintet with an even wider scope than Nickel Creek's bluegrass-based repertoire.
Though he plays an instrument associated with classic bluegrass, Thile says he was interested in blurring genre boundaries by the time he was in his teens.
"I heard the Beatles' 'Rubber Soul' and one of those chromatic descending harmony lines that you didn't hear in bluegrass, and I thought I can put this on my instrument and turn it into something familiar for me," he says. "It was a great song, and it didn't matter that the Beatles that the Beatles didn't play it with mandolins. The question of genre became one of orchestration and texture. It's content and intent, and you can put anything on any collection of instruments. A truly great piece of music, whether it's by Radiohead or Bach (both of whom Punch Brothers have covered), survives any amount of orchestration."
Thile readily acknowledge the marketing difficulties he and his band present to people who care about such things.
"Our growth has been slow and steady, in part because it's difficult to tell people what our music is in a sentence," he says. "You might tell people what we do, and they still may not have any clearer picture. It doesn't give people an incentive to find this on their own. But we're interested in trying to do something new. I'm not saying we've done anything new, but we're trying."
He hints that one of the reasons he branched out from Nickel Creek was to test the musical boundaries even more than his original trio would allow.
"It's like a family relationship in Nickel Creek," he says. "There are certain things you can talk about with family, certain things you understand about each other that no one else will understand. That's how it is with Sean and Sara and me -- we're like blood brothers. The Punchies are the friends you meet along the way. You can choose your friends, not your family. The Punchies, we're best musical buddies. We can get racy, no holds barred, anything's on the table musically. With Sean and Sara, there is a sense of you can go home, you can rediscover some of that innocence, some of that childish delight -- a warm bath to rediscover that innocence. And I will keep doing that with Sean and Sara. Whereas the new Punch Brothers record, I play one against the together. There is something more intricately wrought against something that delights in the sheer beauty of a well-timed chord or a little melodic move. It's like when a cold and warm weather system meet -- all that swirling action. That's what Punch Brothers is like now."
Also worth hearing
Dave and Phil Alvin: The brothers who formed the legendary Blasters out of Los Angeles in the late '70s have reunited behind a strong 2014 album, "Common Ground" (Yep Roc), covering the music of their boyhood inspiration, Big Bill Broonzy. 9 p.m. Friday at FitzGerald's, 6615 W. Roosevelt, Berwyn, Ill., $25 and $30 (sold out); fitzgeraldsnightclub.com
Ariana Grande: The 21-year-old former Broadway singer and Justin Bieber opening act ruled the charts in 2014 with a No. 1 album, "Everything," and four top-10 singles. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Allstate Arena, Rosemont, Ill., $29.50, $39.50, $49.50, $69.50; ticketmaster.com
Greg Kot co-hosts "Sound Opinions" at 8 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. Saturday on WBEZ-FM 91.5.
greg@gregkot.com
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Riviera Theatre, 4746 N. Racine Ave.
Tickets: $31; jamusa.com
