It’s not like Sam Beam needs outside assistance to make an Iron & Wire song sound quietly intense and understatedly majestic. Beam’s been releasing music under that name for more than twenty years, and he has never wavered in his ability to deliver material make with impeccable craft and deeply embedded power. Even so, “All in Good Time,” the new single from Iron & Wine, suggests there is no such thing as a song that Fiona Apple can’t make exponentially better.

Apple duets with Beam on “All in Good Time,” and interplay between their droll, offhandedly emotional vocals is a marvel. “All in good time, I drifted away/ I ran my mouth ’til I’d nothing to say/ You broke my heart, then I was okay/ All in good time” are already strong lyrics, but Apple has this uncanny ability to make them feel like part confession, part lament, and part declaration of personal wherewithal all at once. She alchemizes feeling, a talent that finds a perfect home within the Iron & Wire musical universe.

“Her voice is a miracle that sounds like both a sacrifice and a weapon at the same time,” Beam says, and he couldn’t be more correct.

Light Verse, the new album from Iron & Wine, is scheduled for release in April.