Neil Gaiman & FourPlay String Quartet unite on new album ‘Signs Of Life’.
The novelist and comic book figure links with one of Australia’s most revered string quartet’s for this new project, a collaboration some 10 years in the works. The two parties first met in 2010, with Sydney Opera House’s Graphic Festival commissioned FourPlay to write a soundtrack for one of Neil’s novellas.
A performance followed, with the author remaining in touch with the group. He reflects: “I’m not entirely certain when I fell in love with a string quartet. I remember our first date, though. It was a day spent in a tiny room somewhere in the backstage maze of Sydney Opera House. We played the next night on the stage of the Sydney Opera House. It was remarkable.”
The road to new album ‘Signs Of Life’ began with that concert, and the performances that followed. “It was so much fun we did it again,” he reflects. “We did a tour together, but when we reached Carnegie Hall, we decided we needed something better than me reading a poem as our encore, so we stole some time from soundcheck and rehearsed a song. And then we performed our song on the stage of the Carnegie Hall, and that felt a lot like something special.”
“We started to build a repertoire, and when I was in Australia we would make music together. These are some of the things we’ve made together. It’s been a long fallow winter, the last two and a half years. Here are signs of life.”
Out on April 28th, it’s trailed by two new pieces of music – ‘Bloody Sunrise’ features lead vocals from Lara Goodridge, and backup vocals from Neil; ‘Credo’ is a beautiful instrumental piece.
A full video for ‘Bloody Sunrise’ is also online, directed by James Chappell – suitably spooky, you can check it out below.
