Bluegrass-fusion band Twisted Pine first played Chautauqua in 2019, taking the Amphitheater stage on a Sunday afternoon. Now, they’re back, performing at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amp, kicking off Week Eight’s Popular Entertainment Series.
Rooted in traditional bluegrass, Twisted Pine now spans many genres and pulls from influences of all kinds in its music. Kathleen Parks, who plays fiddle in the band, said because each member brought such varied influences to Twisted Pine, they quickly surpassed the boundaries of bluegrass as a single genre.
“When it came to the writing (of the music), all of us had so many different influences that were really inspiring us,” she said. “That fit its way into our playing.”
She described the group’s earliest releases as being like “training wheels” for the band. From there, she said, the band focused more heavily on the indie, funk and R&B influences.
“Now with our own songwriting, we really dive into those sounds and we still are in the bluegrass festival circuit, but we definitely are playing outside of that genre a lot of the time. We still have a very deep love for it too,” Parks said.
Twisted Pine released its debut self-titled album in 2017 followed by the EP Dreams in 2018 and Right Now in 2020. Their forthcoming third album, Love Your Mind, is due Oct. 18 via Signature Sounds Recordings.
Mandolinist Dan Bui said their influences are vast and wide-reaching, but he cited artists including Vulfpeck, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock and Frank Zappa as being particularly influential for Twisted Pine. And Anh Phung, Twisted Pine’s flutist, said that the cross-genre aspect of their music brings a lot of different sounds to a lot of different people.
“Maybe they’re more attached to the groove side of it, maybe they’re more attached to the string instrumentation of it, maybe they hear the songwriting,” she said.
She said it is hard to label the band because of the many aspects of their music, but she described it as “groove-based with this string-band element, plus songwriting.”
Parks said Chautauquans can expect to hear some of the material from the unreleased album during tonight’s performance.
“We’ll be playing a bunch of new songs from that album,” she said. “We’ve already started playing a lot of those songs, so we’ll be bringing them to Chautauqua for sure. We’re still road testing the songs since we recorded them in the studio, but it’s been really fun to see the audience’s reaction. There’s still some funk, there’s indie, but we’ve even been diving into some more country elements, as well. It’s been making for a really fun show because it’s pretty expansive, the sound, and there’s something for everybody when they come and see us live.”
Phung said in her experience, people are often surprised by what the grouping of instruments can do.
“The sound and the particular instrumentation is a little bit peculiar, and a lot of people comment on the instrumentation in that setting and what is possible with that group of instruments,” Phung said.
Chris Sartori, the band’s upright bassist, said Twisted Pine likes for people to experience music without needing to put it in a neat, defined category.
“We try to get our audience to open their minds a little bit and have moments of freedom in the experience of the music itself,” he said.
