Amid touring and recording, bandmates find time to relax

As the tsunami wave of life’s duties, such as a performance on Wednesday in the Southern Theatre, rushes toward the Punch Brothers, the band’s latest album finds them drinking cocktails on a beach, ready for the onslaught.

“All Ashore,” the bluegrass-esque ensemble’s fifth full-length release, faces down the mammoth topics of long-term relational commitment, political unrest and purpose in work while allowing moments of escapism in the midst.

That levity comes in the form of two instrumental tracks — “Three Dots and a Dash” and “Jungle Bird” — both, appropriately, named after vintage Tiki drinks.

Chris Thile, the lead vocalist and mandolin player, explained that he and his four bandmates developed a Tiki cocktail obsession around the time they began work on “All Ashore.”

Originally, Polynesian party culture came on the heels of the Great Depression, when, according to urban legend, the extremely American Ernest Gantt opened a Tiki bar in Los Angeles to take minds off the ongoing economic crisis.

“Tiki represents one of America’s most shameless gestures of escape, just rank escapism,” Thile said.

His wordless tracks are like cocktails — a brief breath before re-entering reality.

“I don’t know about you, but occasionally I just need to go get a drink,” he said.

Thile could definitely use a drink.

Aside from his Punch Brothers work, as of late 2016 Thile took over as host of radio program “A Prairie Home Companion” (now “Live From Here”) upon the retirement of former host Garrison Keillor.

Since then, he also released a solo album of his weekly “Live From Here” songs, and another with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.

Thile has somehow managed to tackle it all with equal skill.

It’s less about organizational talent, he said, and more about firefighting.

“It’s really, ‘This house is in greater danger of being totally consumed than this other one over here, where the fire has just started, so let me put out this fire first and then that fire,’” he said. “God, that makes it sound very dramatic.”

Committing fully to every moment might sound like a yoga teacher platitude, but Thile finds that it’s the only way to meet deadlines and enjoy his work, not to mention navigate an age of increasing distraction.

“Our consciousness is so fractured right now, and we’re taking on unprecedented amounts of work as a species, and so, if we can put ourselves more squarely in those moments, all this work we’re taking on rights itself somehow,” he said.

Thile has had some built-in focus through his ambitious “Song of the Week” segment on “Live From Here.”

He writes a new tune, often related to current events, for each show.

The songwriter compared the exercise to lifting weights at “a composing gym,” meaning that writing songs for “All Ashore” was more of a cool down than a strenuous workout.

“There’s this luxurious aspect of it,” he said. “We still had deadlines breathing down our necks, but the deadlines are a little more abstract in that case. It’s not the same as ‘The red light is actually going to come on at 6 p.m. and you’re going to have to play stuff.’”

“All Ashore,” which recently won a Grammy

Award for best folk album, found the band’s five members taking the long game, both in writing and in everyday decision-making.

All are in committed relationships,