Sō Percussion with Caroline Shaw: Rectangles and Circumstance

Two books
Two songs
Wet air
Deep breath

One kiss
One hug
Hold time
Deep breath 
Hold time
Deep breath 

Two books
Two songs
One kiss
One hug

Wet air
Deep breath
Hold time
Deep breath

Hold time
Deep breath
Hold time
Deep breath

Who turns out the light
Reach to touch the ceiling
Don’t learn to say it right, just yet
Just yet
Just yet

Who turns out the light
Reach to touch the ceiling

I’ll be right upstairs
Laying on the floor
Circles, triangles and squares
Wish my mind could hold a little more

White noise hums behind my ears
Night light glows across my eyes
Colours letters shapes and fears
Stack of scattered paper lies

Whisper tears away
Bring my head down low
One deep breath to end the day
Hold time, then I go

Who turns out the light
Reach to touch the ceiling
Don’t learn to say it right, just yet
I’ll be right upstairs

Lyrics by Eric Cha-Beach
 

Lay it all down
Search party for a noun
While they run around
Little vowels on the playground

Hands outstretched for a sip
Just a drip
One small taste of the missing adjective

Walking the line
Everything’s fine
Internal rhyme of a lie

I’m searching the streets
Finding beats of deceit
Bare skin on clean sheets

Slow motion realization
Unfurl my abbreviation

Walking the line
Everything’s fine
Internal rhyme of a lie

I’m searching the streets
Finding beats of deceit
Bare skin on clean sheets

Overly sophisticated
Occupied, exaggerated

Walking the line
Everything’s fine
Internal rhyme of a lie

I’m searching the streets
Finding beats of deceit
Bare skin on clean sheets

This This This
This This This This

Slow motion realisation
Unfurl this suspension

Lyrics by Caroline Shaw, Danni Lee, and Eric Cha-Beach

Don’t go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me

Don’t go sharing your devotion
Lay all your love on me

Lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (ABBA)

Beloved art, in how many a bleak hour,
when I am enmeshed in life’s tumultuous round,
have you kindled my heart to the warmth of love,
and borne me away to a better world!

Often a sigh, escaping from your harp,
a sweet, celestial chord
has revealed to me a heaven of happier times.
Beloved art, for this I thank you! 

Instrumental, inspired by Franz Schubert
Original lyrics by Franz von Schober
English translation Richard Wigmore

Caroline Shaw is a musician who moves among roles, genres and media, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She often collaborates with others as producer, composer, violinist and vocalist. She is the recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music, several Grammy awards, an honorary doctorate from Yale and a Thomas J Watson Fellowship.

Current and recent projects include the score to Fleishman is in Trouble (FX/Hulu), vocal work with Rosalía (MOTOMAMI), the score to Josephine Decker’s The Sky Is Everywhere (A24/Apple), music for the National Theatre’s production of The Crucible (directed by Lyndsey Turner), Justin Peck’s Partita with New York City Ballet, a new stage work LIFE (Gandini Juggling/Merce Cunningham Trust), the premiere of Microfictions, Vol 3 for the New York Philharmonic and Roomful of Teeth, a live orchestral score for Wu Tsang’s silent film Moby Dick, co-composed with Andrew Yee, two albums for Nonesuch (Evergreen and
The Blue Hour), the score for Helen Simoneau’s dance work Delicate Power, tours of Graveyards and Gardens (co-created with Vanessa Goodman) and the current tour with Sō Percussion, as well as occasional chamber music appearances as violist with the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota and La Jolla Music Society.

In the past decade Caroline Shaw has written over 100 works for artists and ensembles such as Anne Sofie von Otter, Davóne Tines, Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque, Cincinnati and Seattle Symphony orchestras, Aizuri, Calidore, Dover and Miro quartets, The Crossing, Brooklyn Rider, I Giardini, Ars Nova Copenhagen, Ariadne Greif, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Britt Festival and the Vail Dance Festival.

She has contributed production to albums by Rosalía, Woodkid and Nas. Her work as vocalist or composer has featured in several films, TV series and podcasts, including The Humans, Bombshell, Yellowjackets, Maid, Dark, Beyoncé’s Homecoming, Tár, Dolly Parton’s America and More Perfect.

Ringdown, featuring composer-musicians Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan, are a cinematic electro-pop duo creating music that floats up from the dusty record bin between Brahms and Brandi Carlile, and centres around joy and human connection.

The duo were drawn to one another through mutual admiration of each other’s work: Shaw having won a Pulitzer Prize and several Grammy Awards for her boundary-breaking compositions and film music, and Parpan being a dynamic vocalist and folk-pop singer-songwriter who writes emotionally stirring lyrics and relishes in challenging how instruments are ‘supposed’ to be played. Together as Ringdown, they forge a new way of unlocking ways to write, sing and perform, encouraging each to loosen their grip on the
music they have created previously and revel in the intricate pop music they have always loved. Their songs, sonically merging Shaw’s pull toward the abstract with Parpan’s directness, result, they hope, in music that invites deep listening but also welcomes you to sing along.

As for the band’s name: A ringdown is the theorised sound two black holes make in the final microseconds when they merge, a sub-bass whoosh and glide that suggest the world’s biggest synthesizer, sighing in contentment.

Ringdown are working on a debut album for Nonesuch Records and have performed across the US and internationally. The duo, who are partners on and off the stage, split their time between Portland, Oregon, and New York.