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.