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Oct 25, 2022 By Joey Arnone Photography by Chris Frape

Acclaimed author Neil Gaiman and Australian string quartet FourPlay have announced the release of their debut collaborative album, Signs of Life, which will be out on April 28, 2023 via Instrumental Recordings. They have shared two new singles from the album: “Bloody Sunrise,” which features lead vocals by Lara Goodridge, and “Credo.” A video for “Bloody Sunrise,” directed by James Chappell, has also been shared. Listen to the singles and view the video along with the album’s tracklist/cover art below.

Gaiman states in a press release: “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. It was so much fun we did it again. 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.”

FourPlay adds: “Neil’s mastery of storytelling, and his crafting of words, is second to none. 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. Nevertheless, we could never have expected to find him to also be such a master of pacing, such a musical performer and wordsmith. We’re joyful to count him as a friend as well as a collaborator, someone we spend pleasurable time with and someone we never fail to create beautiful, glittering things with.”

Signs of Life Tracklisting:

01) Clock
02) Möbius Strip
03) Bloody Sunrise
04) The Wreckers
05) Song of the Song
06) Credo
07) Neverwhere
08) Poem first read on January 26th 2011 at the Sydney Opera House
09) The Problem with Saints
10) In Transit
11) Signs of a Life
12) Oceanic*

* = Digital/CD version only

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