Splendor in the Chamber-Grass

Call it chamber-grass, prog-grass, new-grass, or qualifier-of-choice grass. By whatever name, the progressive limb of the bluegrass family tree has as a ruling class act the mighty and deeply musical Punch Brothers. Like another strong and forward-thinking band out of Brooklyn, the string quartet Brooklyn Rider (which recently performed in the Santa Ynez Concert Series), the Punch Brothers have thankfully played in our town on many occasions. 

We’ve been able to keep tabs on their evolving story, as happened at Campbell Hall recently, as part of their tour for a striking new album, The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers — so named because it’s their first vocal-song-free, instrumental project in a seven-title discography going back to 2008’s Punch. 

For the gender record, there is now a Punch Sister in the ranks as of 2023, the ideal candidate of fiddler Brittany Haas, who joins mandolinist Chris Thile, ace banjoist Noam Pikelny (who played a hot Campbell Hall show with his own band last season), guitarist Chris Eldridge, and double bassist Paul Kowert. It is an ensemble empowered by highwire skills, both individually and in empathetic ensemble accord.

At the epicenter of the group, from the outset, is the wizardly mandolinist and musical force that is Thile. He’s virtually an honorary local by now, having played Santa Barbara in many incarnations, including with Nickel Creek — supporting an album, written in a Montecito COVID era hangout — at the Music Academy of the West’s Gala last year, and slated to be the music director of next June’s prestigious Ojai Music Festival. 

There he was on the Campbell Hall stage, a bouncy yet ever-smart presence, peeling off fluidly executed solo after solo, singing intriguing songs and keeping the collective spirits high. He was also behind a bit of vaudevillian between-song malarky early in the set. The yarn was synced with the vibe of the new album and seeming like a spinoff skit from Prairie Home Companion, from his brief tenure of heading up that famed public radio phenom (under the new name Live from Here).

But the music was what mattered. As has often been said, this is not your grandfather’s or grandmother’s bluegrass, but a hip grandparent would probably approve of the roots of the Punch Brothers sound. Sophisticated song structures, folded into suite-like pieces rather than simple tunes, often leaned into a new classification off in some arty chamber music-adjacent territory. Call it chamber-grass.

Much of the set drew on the expanding PB songbook, with notable exceptions: the opening and almost closing “theme song” “Woods” by Bon Iver, done up in their own way; Josh Ritter’s “Another New World,” and, for comic relief, rising out of Kowert’s half-step motif, John Williams’s ominous-kitsch theme for the movie Jaws. Another wink of a tune was their sea shanty version of Sia’s “Chandelier” and re-branded as “Sia Shanty.” As serious as the primary intent of this band may be, there will be laughs, and attempts thereof.

Songs were flown in from various PB albums over the past nearly 20 years. But special focus was on the new album, as with “Found in a Frozen Fog” and “Songs of the Water Kelpie,” not to mention the strategically placed opening and closing pieces (some of these deserve to be called “pieces” versus “songs”), “New Bike” and “New Book.” 

A general notion put forth by the new album and profile of the band is that “new” is an operative term, a refreshing of the non-formula formula for the band, deep into its artistic life. Hopefully, that life will continue to weave its way through the 805 going forward. So far, so very good.