Punch Brothers

Antifogmatic

About this Album

Punch Brothers have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance for the song "New Chance Blues," off a special edition of Antifogmatic. You can download the song for free here:

Punch Brothers return with their second album, Antifogmatic, June 15, on Nonesuch. The record is the follow-up to the band’s highly praised 2008 debut, Punch, which The New Yorker calls “wide-ranging and restlessly imaginative.” 

Punch Brothers’ line-up includes some of the most impressive and widely respected musicians performing today: Chris Eldridge (guitar), Paul Kowert (bass), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Thile (mandolin and lead vocals), and Gabe Witcher (fiddle). The Boston Globe says of the band, “[T]his top shelf acoustic quintet is a virtuosic revelation,” while the Chicago Tribune says, “[T]heir breathtaking virtuosity isn’t about soloing but complex ensemble unity, with a cumulative power that leaves the listener pleasantly rung out.”

Produced by Jon Brion (Brad Mehldau, Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith, Kanye West), Antifogmatic was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Ocean Way Studios in Hollywood during the winter of 2009–2010. While Punch was focused around Thile’s four-movement composition The Blind Leaving the Blind, Antifogmatic’s ten songs were written collaboratively by the band. Of the process, Witcher explains, “We knew we needed a producer equally as well versed in pop and rock as in instrumental music, and I don’t think there is anyone more able to capture and communicate the essence of this material than Jon Brion.”

Antifogmatic is named after a type of 19th-century alcoholic drink that was meant as a cure for the effects of fog and other inclement weather. Of choosing the title, Thile notes, “'Antifogmatic' is an old term for a bracing beverage, generally rum or whiskey, that a person would have before going out to work in rough weather to stave off any ill effects. This batch of tunes could be used in much the same way, and includes some characters who would probably benefit mightily, if temporarily, from a good antifogmatic.”