Punch Brothers: The Wireless EP

Few modern roots musicians have amassed the critical acclaim and international popularity enjoyed by the honey-voiced, quick-fingered mandolinist Chris Thile. As the frontman and principal songwriter of the progressive bluegrass trio Nickel Creek, the California-born musician spent the early '00s pushing an invigorating, risk-taking acoustic melange he dubbed "newgrass", imbuing an art form commonly thought of as static with modernist quirks. Since then—Nickel Creek's 2014 reunion notwithstanding—Thile has shifted focus to Punch Brothers, a quintet who churn out the same dexterous roots music with a little more oomph. (Meanwhile, Thile’s Nickel Creek comrades Sean and Sara Watkins issued Watkins Family Hour, an LP birthed from the siblings’ monthly residency at Los Angeles’ Largo). Along the way, he’s won a Genius Grant and released several successful solo albums. Next year, he’ll host A Prairie Home Companion. 

Recorded during the same sessions that beget their last album, last year’s T-Bone Burnett-produced The Phosphorescent Blues, Punch Brothers' latest, The Wireless EP, combines three cuts previously included on that record's deluxe vinyl edition with two never-before-heard tracks, bridging their most recent musical statement with their next avant-American LP. The collection’s diverse blend of pensive instrumentals, rousing singsongs, and stylistic experiments—namely, a roots-y interpretation of Elliott Smith’s "Clementine"—makes it a great introduction to the Punch Brothers’ quirky, clever bluegrass, as well as a satisfying (if modest) addition to the quintet’s catalog.

Guitar, mandolin, fiddle/violin, banjo, bass, and whiskey-smooth vocals: six sounds—no more and no less—comprise the bulk of Punch Brothers’ deceptively full sound, a paradigm familiar to anyone who’s heard put on an Alison Krauss or Doc Watson LP. The biggest challenge for the group is molding this simplistic sonic recipe into a multitude of forms without falling victim to redundancy (or even worse, directionless noodling)—and Thile and company make it look like nothing. Where slow-churning opening track "In Wonder" pits soaring harmonies against a relentless, defiant fiddle, slinky instrumental "The Hops of Guldenberg" offers a country-fried take on jazz improvisation. There’s even room for existential banter: centerpiece "Sleek White Baby" stars Ed Helms of "The Office" fame as an old-timey announcer hawking the answer to all life’s problems against a serendipitous shuffle.

If Punch Brothers' barbershop-quartet harmonies and old-school instruments are the roots tethering the group to bluegrass convention, then their covers are the shoots reaching onwards and upwards, transgressive in origin but puzzlingly traditional-sounding in practice. Thile and company regularly toss tunes fashioned outside of their rusted wheelhouse onto their setlists, as well as on their studio releases; past interpretations include spindly, creaky takes on Radiohead's "Kid A" and "Packt Like Sardines In a Crush’d Tin Box", as well as a prickly spin on "Icarus Smicarus", from post-hardcore heroes Mclusky. Like the rest of the band’s covers, "Clementine" is not so much a playful dalliance as it is another 20th century addition to the Punch Brothers’ envelope-pushing interpretation of the bluegrass canon. What’s more, by seamlessly integrating Smith’s booze-soaked hymn into the Appalachian-indebted mix, Thile and company don't just solidify the song’s latent transcendency: they propose a challenge to modern conceptions of bluegrass.