The Tower and The Garden marks the 23rd studio release from The Crossing, and ponders the fragility of the earth, the awe of nature, and the power of language to unite, or divide, society.

The album features commissioned works from Gregory Spears, Joel Puckett, and Toivo Tulev in a widely varied collection that draws on words and poetry of Keith Garebian, Denise Levertov, Thomas Merton, the Botswanan shaman Kxao =Oah, and Walt Whitman. The results: in Tulev’s hands, a churning, haunting rumination on death; in Spears’, a sometimes hymnlike, at other exuberant study on the collision of religion, technology, and conservation; and in Puckett’s, a mesmerizing mediation on transformation and the coming together of body and spirit into oneness.