Part new music ensemble, part American roots string band, and part historical music excavators, the conservatory punks of the Plectrum Five combine the improvisatory timbral explorations of their urban experimental orientation with the Rocky Mountain folk twang of their collective family trees (with a touch of Balkan flair, and whatever else might be lingering in our ancestral pasts). When you hear the Plectrum, you might imagine a covered wagon lilting harshly over the rocks and boulders of the Bozeman Trail, the metal utensils clanging like the resonator, bouzouki and banjo, kids in the back crying like the cello, all in a plodding rhythm that promises you’ll get there soon. You might be reminded of a time in the past when the only music you heard came from living, breathing people playing wooden instruments, who asked you to sing and dance along. This might evoke a deep knowing that survival, joy, and collective music-making, are, somehow, intertwined. 

The Plectrum Five is fronted by artistic director Kaley Lane Eaton (vocals, banjo, other th(str)ings as needed), with Rian Souleles (Greek bouzouki), Tom Baker (guitar, resonator guitar), Mariah Larsen/Lady Zade (cello), Jon Butler (bass and vocals), and Kayce Guthmiller (viola and vocals). Yes, there are six people in the core band of the Plectrum Five. And sometimes, there are even more - when we expand beyond this, inviting global traditions to make something greater than the sum of our parts, we become the Ineffable String Band. Limitless and unable to be captured or articulated, we celebrate the ephemeral nature of music, something so fragile and fleeting and yet strong enough to become the connective tissue of humanity.