Neil Gaiman and Australia's FourPlay String Quartet announce joint album with lead singles "Bloody Sunrise" and "Credo"

"Bloody Sunrise" and "Credo" are the lead releases from Signs of Life, a new album from Neil Gaiman, known for his comic book series The Sandman and books such as Coraline and American Gods, and the FourPlay String Quartet from Australia. "Bloody Sunrise" features lead vocals from Lara Goodridge, with Gaiman on backing vocals.

Gaiman and the FourPlay String Quartet first united in 2010 when the Sydney Opera House Graphic Festival commissioned FourPlay to write a soundtrack to Neil's The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountain Signs of Life.

He says of the album, "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 add, "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 t 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."

1. Tracklist:
2. Clock
3. Möbius Strip
4. Bloody Sunrise
5. The Wreckers
6. Song of the Song
7. Credo
8. Neverwhere
9. Poem first read on January 26th 2011 at the Sydney Opera House
10. The Problem with Saints
11. In Transit
12. Signs of a Life
13. Oceanic