Author Neil Gaiman and Sydney’s FourPlay String Quartet have joined forces to create their first collaborative album, which is also Gaiman’s debut musical work. The record, called Signs Of Life, is due for release on Friday, 28th April 2023. They’ve released two songs from the album, ‘Bloody Sunrise’ and ‘Credo’.
The collaborative relationship between Gaiman and the FourPlay String Quartet started in 2010, when the Sydney Opera House’s Graphic Festival commissioned the quartet to pen a soundtrack to Gaiman’s novella, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains.
Neil Gaiman & The FourPlay String Quartet – ‘Credo’
“I’m not entirely certain when I fell in love with a string quartet,” Gaiman said. “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. It was so much fun we did it again.”
After the first performance, Gaiman and the FourPlay String Quartet went on tour together. “When we reached Carnegie Hall, we decided we needed something better than me reading a poem as our encore,” Gaiman said. This led to the creation of their first song.
“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,” said Gaiman.
From there, the creative partnership blossomed. “When I was in Australia, we would make music together,” Gaiman said. “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.”
The album title, Signs Of Life, stems from an earlier project the group worked on – a suite of original music composed around the central theme of the zodiac. Signs Of Life features interpolations and reworked versions of some of those pieces along with new Neil Gaiman poems and stories against FourPlay’s arrangements.
“Among the members of FourPlay, we have been fans of Neil’s for many years, and it was a golden opportunity to work with him,” said the string quartet. “Nevertheless, we could never have expected to find him to also be such a master of pacing, such a musical performer and wordsmith.”
Visit the official website for more information on the collaboration.
Further Reading
Watch This String Quartet Crash A Sydney Whiskey Bar To Play The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Theme
Watch Opera House In Barcelona Reopen With Concert For Over 2,000 Plants
Sydney Opera House Announces Digital Performance Series Liminal
