At the center of the quartet is Chris Thile, a force of nature with a flatpick. As he improvised, Thile's imagination repeatedly pushed him to enter mazes of his own design, and just as the listener began to suspect the path taken was impossible to resolve, Thile finished his idea perfectly and logically before entering the next door and beginning a new search. Hearing Thile solo was like experiencing the visceral rush of an Art Tatum melded to the otherworldly beauty of a Mozart. Thile's ability to drop into a whispering pianissimo at any tempo, in any register, including the ethereally high, where most mandolinists have to stretch for tonal accuracy, was breathtaking. His fastest runs can create the effect of a portamento approaching a true glissando, each note so perfectly placed they give the effect of sliding between them.
Nickel Creek is the future of American acoustic music, and the future never looked rosier.