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It’s been a long time coming, but Shelter is finally here!

The latest collaborative work by Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe is a modern oratorio that reunites the Bang on a Can founders with Deborah Artman (author of the libretto for 2001’s Lost Objects). Produced by Michael Riesman, this premiere recording was performed by Ensemble Signal under the baton of conductor Brad Lubman, and features solo voices Martha Cluver, Mellissa Hughes and Caroline Shaw.

Writing for The Atlantic, Robinson Meyer lauds Shelteras “…more than the fragility of human refuge. It hints at our whole, sheltering ecosystem: beautiful, primal, mathematic, and relentless.” It’s an apt description. Artman’s text lends an air of ritual to the opening piece “Before I Enter,” a study in the many ways people from different walks of life take up the seemingly mundane task of coming home—from a journey, a hunt or just a hard day’s work. Further on, the music breathes a sanctified, stately life into the shopping list of building materials laid out in “American Home,” while “What We Build” rumbles and shakes amidst the message: “No house, no tower, no temple, no castle, no dwelling built by human hands is eternal.”

To celebrate the release of Shelter, we’re bundling the new disc with The Carbon Copy Building, the first Gordon/Lang/Wolfe collaboration to be released on Cantaloupe. If you’ve never heard this 2006 classic, now’s your chance to save some cash while stocking up on two-and-a-half hours of structural integrity from Bang on a Can!