Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion’s "Other Song," a track from their upcoming album, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, is out today, with an accompanying video directed by Maureen Towey. The video was shot at Rise and Root Farm, a five-acre farm in New York’s Hudson Valley that is rooted in social justice and run cooperatively by four owners who are women, intergenerational, multi-racial, and LGBTQ; one of the owners, Karen Washington, is featured in the video. You can watch it here:

Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part—Shaw’s solo vocal debut—is out next Friday, June 25, on Nonesuch Records. Shaw and Sō—Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting—developed songs in the studio, including lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymn book, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune “I’ll Fly Away,” and the pop perfection of ABBA, among others. The album is co-produced by Shaw, Sō Percussion, and the Grammy Award–winning engineer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift). Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part is available to preorder now; Nonesuch Store come with a custom climbing pole bean seed packet hand-printed and signed by Shaw.

Shaw says of the track, “I had these bits of ‘Other Song,’ so I made this abstract reduction, with a verse-chorus structure and a wild build in the middle. The prompt for all of us was: what would we make in the room together if there were no single person in charge, the way a band writes in the studio?”

Their impromptu band session, says co-producer Cha-Beach, “had that ‘capturing lightning in a bottle’ feeling. We were so excited that we made a nine- or ten-minute version of the song. ‘Other Song’ went so well, that we decided we have to try to do this more.”

Caroline Shaw is a New York–based musician—vocalist, violinist, composer, and producer—who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for Partita for 8 Voices, written for the Grammy–winning Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member. Shaw’s film scores include Erica Fae’s To Keep the Light and Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline as well as the upcoming short 8th Year of the Emergency by Maureen Towey. Hailed for “astonishing both the pop and classical music worlds” (Guardian), she has produced for Kanye West (The Life of Pablo; Ye) and Nas (NASIR), and has contributed to records by The National and by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry. Shaw currently teaches at NYU and is a Creative Associate at The Juilliard School. Her 2019 Nonesuch / New Amsterdam album Orange won a Grammy Award. Her site-specific musical installation Brush: Music in the Woodlands premieres at Oregon’s Britt Festival on July 30.

Through its interpretations of modern classics, innovative multi-genre original productions, and “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (New Yorker), Sō Percussion has redefined the scope and role of the modern percussion ensemble. Sō’s repertoire ranges from twentieth century works by John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis, to commissioning and advocating works by contemporary composers such as David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Steven Mackey, to collaborations with artists who work outside the classical concert hall, including Shara Nova, choreographer Susan Marshall, The National, Bryce Dessner, and many others. Sō has recorded more than twenty albums, including a performance of Reich’s Mallet Quartet on the Nonesuch record WTC 9/11; appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall, the Barbican, the Eaux Claires Festival, MassMoCA, and TED 2016; and performed with Jad Abumrad, JACK Quartet, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel, among others.