Rock legend Robert Plant [ tickets ] and singer/songwriter Alison Krauss [ tickets ] have set an Oct. 23 release date for the pair's shared new studio effort, "Raising Sand."

According to a press release, the unlikely project came about when former Led Zeppelin frontman Plant phoned contemporary bluegrass star Krauss about seven years ago to tell her he admired her work and wanted to work with her someday. The duo first sang together at a Leadbelly tribute during Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, and eventually enlisted producer T-Bone Burnett to help them record together.

Burnett had the two singers work on material in Krauss' Nashville home before bringing them into the studio with a full band, he explained in a press statement. "The idea was to take them both out of their comfort zone," he said.

The resulting studio sessions--with the pair fronting a full band consisting of guitarist Marc Ribot, bassist Dennis Crouch and drummer Jay Bellerose, occasionally augmented by guitarist Norman Blake and multi-instrumentalist Mike Seeger--produced the 13-track "Raising Sand," which covers a wide spectrum of musical territory, according to the project's publicist, including R&B, blues, country and folk.

"You've got two singers that can handle a wide range of material--storytellers," said Burnett. "So you look for the stories...."

"When we got seventy-five percent of the way down the line, I realized we'd created something that I could never have dreamt of," Plant said in a prepared statement.

"There's so much romance in contrast," Krauss added. "It was a real life-changing experience."