With Floodplain, Kronos Quartet draws together work from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe in particular from those nations whose external conflicts and internal divisions have, for many westerners, often overshadowed their rich musical legacies. With these twelve specially commissioned tracks, Kronos Quartet explore centuries-old traditions while also presenting adventurous new music by young composers who sample and reinterpret aspects of their indigenous cultures. Some of these pieces have been adapted from the religious, folk, classical and popular music of Egypt, Lebanon, Azerbaijan and Iraq, among other places. Others were written for Kronos Quartet by such contemporary artists as the Palestinian electronic / hip hop collective Ramallah Underground, who Kronos founder David Harrington discovered via myspace, and the Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov.
