Album Notes: Sō Percussion and Caroline Shaw
Rectangles and Circumstance is out this Friday on Nonesuch Records
photo Anja Schutz
Our second collaborative album with Caroline Shaw is out this Friday. I wrote the liner notes which are printed in the CD insert and on Nonesuch’s website. In it, I attempt to capture the essence of how the five of us worked together to create these songs.
I am very excited that Nonesuch is publishing it! I’m leaving it on their site for now rather than duplicating it here, so please head over to read it if you are interested.
On Friday at 2pm, we are throwing a Bandcamp Listening Party online. Click on the link to RSVP and join.
You can already hear three singles and more from the album:
“Rectangles and Circumstance:” Title track!
“Slow Motion:” This piece started with one of Jason’s rhythmic mind-bogglers, and Ringdown (Caroline and Danni Lee) added these wonderful lyrics and melodies.
"To Music:” Our take on Franz Schubert’s lied “And Die Musik,” but much slower, with no melody, adding steel drums and piano knocking sounds.
“The Parting Glass,” from New Sounds Live on WNYC. The words from the famous traditional Scottish/Irish ballad, with a new melody from Caroline, over vibraphone chords borrowed from good old J.S. Bach, played backwards (our working title for this piece was “Bachwards.”
I titled the essay “The Composer as Listener” because I have learned so much from Caroline by observing her. She remains embodied while she is creating — always singing, moving, and gesturing. She is the opposite of a capital “C” Composer in her demeanor, process, and outlook. Yet everything she touches feels and sounds like her.
In the album notes, I pick one example for each of the four of us in Sō Percussion to demonstrate how we engage with her creatively. I also discuss how she is willing to sit with a song for a long time. One of my favorite things is when she gets a crazy Sō-style piece from us, such as Eric’s sevens-upon-sevens in “Sing On,” and allows herself to hear new possibilities in it. Sometimes she will figure out the micro activity, at other times she’ll notice that there’s a latent phrase and shape it.
The essay is tight, so I don’t have time to express full appreciation for what my colleagues in Sō contribute to the effort. Jason wrote buckets of material that underlie about half the album, and he’s also a fantastic drummer. There’s no way we’d be moving from percussion quartet over to these kind of songs without his drumming.
Eric was Sō’s primary producer, and he wrote the instrumental material for both “Sing On" and “Who Turns out the Light,” a flowerpot quartet with Caroline which is devastatingly beautiful.
Josh masterminded the concept of “To Music” with Caroline, and his synth game is very strong, going all the way back to our touring days with Matmos. Also, there is a running (and true) joke in Sō, which is that even if you don’t like most things you hear on one of our shows, you will probably like the steel drum playing.
The not-secret sauce on all of our albums with Caroline is the producer and engineer Jon Low. From the first day we recorded together, Jon understood exactly what our composite sound as a band was going to be. He knows when to allow things to proliferate and when to tighten and draw down, and he knows how drums should sound!
After the album is out, I may do a deeper track-by-track dive. The plan for my next Substack essay is to write about music for flowerpots, and the track “Who Turns Out the Light” will be featured there.