Last month, the Philadelphia band Hour announced a new album called Ease The Work, their follow-up to 2018’s Anemone Red. They shared lead single “Hallmark” from it at the time, and today they’re back with another cut from it, the album’s title track.

“‘Ease the Work’ came from listening to a lot of Bach, along with Robert Wyatt’s ‘Gharbzadegi’ on repeat,” leader Michael Cormier-O’Leary shared. “I’d also been listening to Gordon Bok, Anne Mayo Muir, and Ed Trickett, folk singers from Maine who made a number of recordings together that I treasure.” He continued:

The name “Ease the Work” comes from the song “And So Will We Yet,” which is an interpretation of an old Scottish ballad called “And Sae Will We Yet.” In Bok’s version, he changes the line “And we’ve lippen’d aye to Providence, and sae will we yet” to “And we eased the work of Providence, and so will we yet.” It’s a beautiful translation and an evocative sentiment. Fate is inevitable, but we can choose acceptance over resistance. The cello solo at the end of the song embodies a compositional strategy I employed throughout the album, which involves having melodic lines slowly reaching for something it never quite reaches.

Listen below.

Ease The Work is out 4/12 via Dear Life Records.