Nonesuch Records has signed mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile as well as his new band, Punch Brothers: Chris Eldridge (guitar), Greg Garrison (bass), Noam Pikelny (banjo), and Gabe Witcher (fiddle). The band’s label debut will be released on February 26, 2008.
Thile is perhaps best known as a member of the Grammy Award-winning trio Nickel Creek, with whom he had played since childhood. He formed the band now known as Punch Brothers for his 2006 Sugar Hill record, How to Grow a Woman from the Ground. In a review of that album, The Chicago Tribune said, "After wandering ever further from bluegrass with Nickel Creek and his own solo albums over the past decade, mandolinist/singer Thile charges back to home base with a modernist bluegrass grand slam. Strutting their stuff with the boss is Thile’s cherry-picked crop of like-aged (mid-20s) acoustic virtuosi, including local boys Greg Garrison on bass and Noam Pikelny on banjo," and The Wisconsin State Journal called it "a progressive bluegrass marvel."
The new album will include Thile’s four-movement composition, The Blind Leaving the Blind, which the band performed at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall earlier this year, as part of label-mate John Adams’ In Your Ear festival.
Thile’s solo records and collaborations also will be released by Nonesuch, beginning with an album with composer/bassist Edgar Meyer later in 2008.
