Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion have released the title track to their forthcoming album, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, due June 25, as well as a video for the track made by Shaw, which you can watch here. Shaw says of the track, a duet with Sō's Josh Quillen: "Josh is an amazing steel pan player. I wrote out these odd little chords and said, ‘Here’s essentially a kind of verse and a kind of chorus. Otherwise, we’re loose. Here’s the harmonic progression.’ An hour before, I went into a free writing zone, very much inspired by James Joyce."

Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, an album of songs written and performed by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, is due June 25 on Nonesuch Records. With Shaw on vocals and Sō filling out this new band, they developed songs in the studio, with lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymnal, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune “I’ll Fly Away,” the pop music of ABBA, and more. Pre-order to download “To the Sky” now and get a custom climbing pole bean seed packet hand-printed and signed by Shaw.

Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Caroline Shaw's second Nonesuch album, Narrow Sea, is out now. Shaw wrote the album's title piece, for Sō Percussion, Dawn Upshaw, and Gilbert Kalish, who perform it here: five parts, each a new setting of a text from The Sacred Harp, the 19th-century collection of shape-note hymns. Video for all five parts of the piece can be seen here. Also on the album is Sō Percussion's performance of Shaw's Taxidermy, which she wrote for the ensemble.

Composer Caroline Shaw's new album, Narrow Sea, featuring Sō Percussion, Dawn Upshaw, and Gilbert Kalish's performance of the title piece—five parts, each a new setting of a text from The Sacred Harp, the 19th-century collection of shape-note hymns—is due next Friday, January 22, on Nonesuch. Here, the artists talk with writer Matthew Guerrieri about the album, which also includes Sō Percussion's performance of Shaw's Taxidermy. Find out why she tells Guerrieri: "I was telling a friend, half-jokingly, that, in a lot of my music, I’m trying to figure out a way to talk about death and mortality, or think about it."

Nonesuch Records releases its second album from Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Caroline Shaw, Narrow Sea, on January 22, 2021. The title piece was written for Sō Percussion, Dawn Upshaw, and Gilbert Kalish, who perform it on this recording: five parts, each a new setting of a text from The Sacred Harp nineteenth century collection of shape-note hymns. Also on the album is Sō Percussion's performance of Shaw's Taxidermy, which she wrote for the ensemble. A video for Part 2 of Narrow Sea can be seen here.