(2023) Neil Gaiman & FourPlay String Quartet - Signs of Life
Review:
On his debut recording Signs of Life with the FourPlay String Quartet, Neil Gaiman’s greatest fear as a recording artist is ending up in the very shaky territory of William Shatner. While there are moments that may have a bit of a Shatnerian odor to them, for the most part this collection well exceeds that very low bar. First of all, most of the words are his (those that aren’t belong to some guy named Shakespeare). He can also sing a bit, which James T. Kirk could never be accused of doing well. Not bad from someone who has spent the better part of his career functioning as a writer of everything from comics to novels, along the way adapting some of his works for the stage, television and movies. On the plus side, FourPlay String Quartet create some of the most amazing string music imaginable. They are a quartet with a violin, two violas and a cello, yet they have covered decidedly untraditional music, Radiohead, Metallica and Leonard Cohen. They delve into decidedly modern territory while their framework clearly is quite so untraditional. Together with Gaiman they go into territory they have been mining since 2010 when they collaborated on a reading of his novella, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains. Signs of Life begins with a metronome set to 60 beats per minute. Gaiman reads Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 12,” while the quartet begins with staccato notes before branching out into something lusher and more musical as the reading ends. The results are fascinating, gaining power in the final three minutes where they build and create a piece that goes beyond the simple themes established in the Shakespearean portion of the piece. FourPlay’s chops are beyond reproach. With Lara Goodridge on violin, Shenton Gregory on viola, Tim Hollo on viola and Peter Hollo on cello, they are able to create music that goes well beyond the range of classical music. Gregory in his guise as Shenzo Gregorio even played while being suspended from a height of 27 meters inside the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney, Australia. Applying that kind of creativity to their music, they have reshaped the musical language of the string quartet, in the process melding form and function to fit the ever changing landscape of modern music. This is certainly the case when it comes to their work with Gaiman, originally creating works based on the zodiac. However, instead of the traditional astrological signs, these were replaced by new objects and words representing aspects of life. While those sessions were eventually scrapped, the music ended up in a variety of different contexts, including the song “Möbius Strip.” While being used as a metaphor for the shape of life, the song also presents the problem that exists within the album as a whole. While Gaiman does sing at points, for the most part he ends up reciting most of his lines. As a result, rather than stepping on his work, FourPlay need to wait until he’s done to really show what they can do. Since all four members of FourPlay also sing, that takes some of the burden off Gaiman, making a piece like “Bloody Sunrise,” the tale of a heartbroken vampire, more successful, yet it feels like a minor piece rather than something you’d want to stake a career on. The more successful pieces tend to be longer, where Gaiman can do his thing and then FourPlay do theirs. One of the most successful numbers is “Neverwhere.” Strings fire at odd angles and tension builds to a feverish pitch. Along with the more straightforward (at least until the end) “Oceanic,” where the wordless vocals of Goodridge work in conjunction with the quartet, these are the only two pieces where Gaiman does not appear. While Neil Gaiman and FourPlay String Quartet never wander into Shatnerian territory on Signs of Life, that doesn’t mean the album is a complete success. The territory they inhabit has always been difficult to merge. The worlds of spoken word and classical music have always been at odds with each other, making the album only a qualified success. However, when they do succeed, the results are spectacular. — spectrumculture
Track List:
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
Media Report:
Genre: chamber pop, classical, indie-folk
Country: Sydney, Australia
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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