Neil Gaiman—the celebrated author of graphic novels including Stardust, Coraline, and The Sandman—has announced that he’s releasing an album of original music: Signs of Life is due out April 28, 2023, via Instrumental Recordings. The album is an extended collaboration with Australia’s FourPlay String Quartet, with words, music, and backing vocals from Gaiman.

Ahead of the release, Gaiman and FourPlay String Quartet have shared two new songs: “Credo” and “Bloody Sunrise,” the latter of which arrives with its own music video. “Bloody Sunrise” includes lyrics, music, and backing vocal by Gaiman and lead vocals from Lara Goodridge. Directed by James Chappell, the video opens with Goodridge lying in a coffin before rising to join the rest of the FourPlay String Quartet for a chilling performance in a graveyard. Gaiman appears briefly on a flickering television screen at the start of the video. Check it out below.

Gaiman first collaborated with FourPlay String Quartet in 2010. The quartet was commissioned to compose a soundtrack for Gaiman’s novella The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains, which they later performed together. In a statement, Gaiman shared:

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.

Signs of Life is the first official collaborative album from Gaiman and FourPlay String Quartet. The novelist been an in-demand film and television writer since the 1990s, and often presents his poems and short stories live at readings with his wife, Amanda Palmer.

Neil Gaiman & FourPlay String Quartet: Signs of Life

$27 at Rough Trade

Signs of Life:

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