Punch Brothers' latest album, The Phosphorescent Blues, is a beautiful meeting point of sounds. The intricacies of the instrumentation and soaring harmonies of the 10-minute-plus opener Familiarity, their exquisite Claude Debussy arrangement Passepied, the boldness of My Oh My and the joy of Magnet loosens the band's bluegrass shackles and places them firmly in the realm of mad and wonderful musical science.
The album demands your full attention. The lyrical theme that runs throughout is modern technology and our ever-increasing struggle to put down our gadgets long enough to fully absorb a 50-odd minute collection of songs, such as this.
"We were drinking scotch and hanging out. The theme kind of emerged from a conversation we were having about technology and the way that we were relating to one another; the way that humans are relating to each other in the age of iPhones and electronic media," explains the band's guitarist, Chris Eldridge.
"It's very real. We are relating to each other differently than before. Without trying to sound preachy, a lot of the record was stuff we were all thinking about."
There was also the discussion as to whether the American five-piece even needed to release full-length albums."It was something we thought about, and agonised about, because you don't need an album any more. People don't consume music that way any more.
