Punch Brothers kick off a North American tour featuring music from their new album, The Phosphorescent Blues, with three nights at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, starting tonight (Chris Thile's birthday). The tour includes stops in Nashville, Chicago, New York, Boston, and Vancouver; four dates in California; three in Texas; and more, with supporting sets from Gaby Moreno, Michael Daves, and Gabriel Kahane along the way. The vinyl edition of The Phosphorescent Blues is due out Tuesday.

Punch Brothers recently stopped by the CMT studios for a Live @ CMT session, performing what CMT Edge calls a "sparkling" set of four songs off their new album, The Phosphorescent Blues: “Julep,” “Magnet,” “I Blew It Off,” and “Boll Weevil.” You can watch the performances here. The band was featured on NPR's World Cafe yesterday. They spoke with host David Dye, who calls them "some of the very best acoustic musicians anywhere," and performed three songs from the new album: "I Blew It Off," "Magnet" and "Boll Weevil."

Punch Brothers were the musical guests on Conan last night on TBS, performing "Magnet" from their new album, The Phosphorescent Blues. They were also the musical guest on a special episode of A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, guest-hosted by none other than Chris Thile. Watch performances from both shows here. And tune in to NPR's World Cafe today to hear the band perform. 

Punch Brothers, the Evening Standard noted in a four-star review of their recent London show, "sounded as sharp as they looked." All the rarer then to find the band dressed casually in a new video that goes behind the scenes of the writing of their new album, The Phosphorescent Blues, which you can watch here. The band previews their forthcoming tour as musical guests on A Prairie Home Companion this weekend, guest-hosted by none other than Chris Thile. Following Rolling Stone's recent exclamation that "Punch Brothers are astoundingly skilled, non-show-offy, and pretty much pushing at the vanguard of really great music you need to listen to right now," PopMatters calls their new album "another triumph for the quintet." No Depression calls it "tremendous," explaining: "These are, after all, five of the most dexterous, creative, imaginative musicians working in any area of music today."

Punch Brothers’ T Bone Burnett–produced new album, The Phosphorescent Blues. The album "shows off their eclectic sound," says NPR's Morning Edition. "The album mixes chamber-music intricacy, improvisational flash, lump-in-throat balladry, and a puckish Debussy cover," says the Boston Globe. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says the new album features "some choral harmonies that are somewhere between the Beach Boys and heaven." The CBC calls the album "triumphant." "Listening to the Punch Brothers is an exercise in wonder," says the Irish Times. "The playing and harmonies are breathtaking. Enjoy." The Herald Scotland calls it "a quite masterly collection from a quintet of virtuosi."

Punch Brothers' new album, The Phosphorescent Blues, is due out next week (with vinyl due February 24). But you don't need to wait till then to hear it. The new album is streaming in full all this week exclusively via Press Play series, "where The New York Times debuts noteworthy new music." The band kicks off a brief tour of Ireland and the UK this week; the US tour starts February 20.

Punch Brothers are featured on the cover of the latest issue of Relix magazine. The band is "an unusually well-suited union of prodigious musical talents to the point that they are frequently called a 'supergroup'— both in the austere bluegrass and classical scenes the members rose in and within the more mainstream folk/rock audiences they increasingly appeal to," writes Stacey Anderson in the cover story. "Their latest album, The Phosphorescent Blues, set for a January 27 release, marks the string quintet’s most ambitious studio effort yet ..."

The line-up for the 2015 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival has been announced, and included are three artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Robert Plant, Punch Brothers, and Rhiannon Giddens. The four-day festival takes place in Manchester, Tennessee, and runs June 11–14. Tickets go on sale this Saturday, January 17, at noon ET.

Punch Brothers have released a new song, "My Oh My," from their forthcoming, T Bone Burnett–produced album, The Phosphorescent Blues. The song is available as an instant download with pre-orders of the new album, which is due out January 27, with the vinyl to follow on February 24. Listen to the song, as well as the two other instant-download tracks, "I Blew It Off" and Julep," here. Punch Brothers kicks off a brief tour of Ireland and the United Kingdom next week.

Punch Brothers, Rhiannon Giddens, and the duo of Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer will be among the performers at the 42nd annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, taking place June 18–21, 2015, the weekend of the summer solstice. The preliminary lineup for the much-loved Colorado event was announced earlier today, just before the winter solstice. Among the other performers are Thile's fellow Punch Brother Noam Pikelny, who will perform with fiddler Stuart Duncan.​

Punch Brothers, in their second year of residency at the Oberlin Conservatory, have been named Affiliate Scholars at Oberlin. A rare distinction at Oberlin, Affiliate Scholars are named in recognition of significant professional achievement and with the purpose of facilitating artistic or scholarly endeavor in association with Oberlin. As part of their residency, Punch Brothers engage with students through a wide range of activities, including coaching sessions, master classes, lectures, and performances. 

Nonesuch releases Punch Brothers’ T Bone Burnett–produced The Phosphorescent Blues on January 27, 2015; vinyl follows on February 24 with four additional tracks not available elsewhere. In celebration, the band embarks on a 23-city North American tour on February 20. The Phosphorescent Blues is available to pre-order with instant downloads of the album tracks “I Blew It Off” and “Julep,” which you can preview here.