There’s nothing like a crowd to drive ambitious souls in new directions. So while the Brooklyn quintet Punch Brothers is a string band with a long collective pedigree in roots music, they’re also notable for their skill

 The proudly eclectic Japonize Elephants mix and match bluegrass and klezmer, the Balkans and Appalachia. Then they move on to explore the space where Gypsy and Arab melodies converge within the context of an eccentric

 If no one else has attempted what folkie Terry Murphy does on his third album, it's a wonder that the idea wasn't on anybody else's mind: a song cycle about Wisconsin watering holes. Murphy's dozen tunes about goings-on

 The term "punk bluegrass," coined for the Bad Livers and The Meat Purveyors, applies to Milwaukee's now-defunct .357 String Band. Their ferocious recasting of bluegrass lives not only in banjoist/singer Joe Huber's current