NEIL GAIMAN
&
FOURPLAY STRING QUARTET
Debuted at #1 in the Billboard Charts
for Classical Crossover Albums
"An eclectic blend of classical and indie rock tunes with poetry and prose." NPR Morning Edition
"Steeped in nuanced, atmospheric instrumental detail.” Beat Magazine
"Poetry and music collaboration, at turns comic and terrifying." Uncut
"A meeting of unconventional minds." NPR
"Signs of Life is haunting, whimsical and hypnotic... His debut studio album sounds like it has been plucked straight from the realm of the Dreaming where Morpheus reigns. ” Rolling Stone India
"It’s playful, dark, ridiculous, and earnest, where the music is as essential, creative and thematically appropriate as the words, and the way they engage and interact is nothing short of a joy. There’s a mutual respect, a clear understanding that music can go places words can’t and vice versa.
He offers advice, reflection, wisdom, history and humour, and all the while FourPlay twist, turn and evolve beneath, in, and around his words. It’s ridiculously impressive. At one moment they sound like a string quartet in a concert hall, the next an indie rock band, the next they’re mimicking the Australian bush entering quasi-spiritual territory. They can be a Michael Nyman score on one piece and the next they’re the backing of a 50’s girl group. Is there anything they can’t do? "
Bob Baker Fish, Cyclic Defrost.
Latest Single - Clock
Released on World Shakespeare Day, we present to you Neil Gaiman reading William Shakespeare's Sonnet 12, set to music by FourPlay.
FourPlay sat down to write a piece of music around the concept of time, and wrote this in an improvisational manner to a metronome at 60bpm, emulating the ticking of a clock. We let the metronome tick, and from that beating of time, created this piece in its entirety, in one improvised run from beginning to end. When we played the music to Neil, he suggested Shakespeare’s Sonnet #12 for the lyrics, one of the finest sonnets ever written. And here it is: Clock.
Signs of Life is a gorgeous, ground-breaking and genre-bending collaboration between an iconic author and a unique musical ensemble. Part songwriting, part poetry, part story-telling; all-encompassing, all-engaging, all beautiful.
