Black Spirituals has been played on NTS shows including Awkward Movements, with Body first played on 10 January 2015.

Zachary James Watkins and Marshall Trammell began collaborating in 2009. As Black Spirituals they have recorded several albums, including Of Deconstruction, available this fall on Sige Records.

Watkins earned degrees in composition from the Cornish School and Mills College. But in the mid-2000s his interests began shifting toward improvisational performance. While maintaining a creative tension between his multiple influences, such as region and ethnicity, he seeks to explore universals of music and music theory.

Raised in culturally diverse of Oahu, Hawaii, Marshall Trammell is a percussionist immersed in a deep commitment to the "trap kit," or drum set, as a site for exploration and experimentation in the folk and creative music traditions. He’s interested in finding ways to forge connections between music and ongoing struggles for social change.