The Kronos Quartet have a long record of commissioning compositions and of collaborating with musicians from around the world.

The compositions for this album, all written or arranged for the quartet, hail "from cultures based in areas surrounded by water and prone to catastrophic flooding,"[1] ranging from Egypt and Serbia in the west to India in the east; from Central Asia in the north to Ethiopia in the south.

"[2] Floodplain contains twelve compositions, some newly written for the quartet, such as "Tashweesh," a collaboration with the Ramallah Underground and the long piece by Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov that concludes the album, "...hold me, neighbor, in this storm..." Other compositions are older pieces arranged for the quartet, such as "Nihavent Sitro," by Tanburi Cemil Bey; "Mugam Beyati Shiraz," arranged by Azeri composer Rahman Asadollahi from a song perhaps 700 years old; and "Lullaby," a traditional song from the descendants of slaves and Arab traders who inhabit Iran's southern coast.

[1][6] Floodplain entered the Billboard Top World Albums chart in the week of June 6, 2009, on position six.

David Stabler, writing for The Oregonian, notes that "'Floodplain' has a wildness about it that is especially impassioned and unpredictable.