Setting of four poems by Michael Symmons Roberts for male voices a cappella, commissioned by the King's Singers and first performed by them in April 2014.

MacMillan has been repeatedly drawn to Symmons Roberts's output and his selection here is from Drysalter and Corpus, with a return to the Raising Sparks collection, previously featured in the eponymous 1997 cycle for mezzo-soprano and ensemble. A Rumoured Seed exploits advanced vocal techniques to illuminate these evocative texts.