All Ashore

Most of the music played during this broadcast of Bluegrass Junction are songs from the album All Ashore by the Punch Brothers. It is the fifth studio album by the American group  and the album was self-produced by the band and released by Nonesuch Records on July 20, 2018.

Punch Brothers is an American band consisting of Chris Thile (mandolin), Gabe Witcher (fiddle/violin), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Eldridge (guitar), and Paul Kowert (bass). Their style has been described as „bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the structures of modern classical“ as well as „American country-classical chamber music“.

Chris Thile called All Ashore „a meditation on committed relationships in the present day, particularly in light of the current unsettled political climate—certainly the most unsettled one that anyone in the band has ever experienced.“ He continues, „We were hoping we could create a thing that would be convincing as a complete thought, sort of a nine-movement or a nine-song thought, even though it’s rangy in terms of what it’s talking about and in the characters doing the talking.“

The other three songs are from The Telluride Sessions, which is an album recorded by five acoustic-music instrumentalists under the name Strength in Numbers and released in 1989 on MCA Records, Nashville. The five members are: Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, Mark O’Connor, and Edgar Meyer.

Each song on the album was composed by a different pair of band members. Each possible pair of musicians created one song for the album, which is one of the reasons for the name of the band, Strength in Numbers.

Thank you for listening!