I am going to give Signs of Life the highest accolade available to me: after one spin it was ordered for the Crotchety Collection and will soon make a small dent in the bank balance.

It’s a curious beast, though. More an album of poetry than music. And it sits well off-centre in the local style map. If you imagine the poems of Simon Armitage accompanied by the strings of the Penguin Café Orchestra, you will get the idea. And, if those references are unfamiliar to you, here’s how the quartet puts it themselves:

How do you describe a quartet that write distinctively original music, radically reinterpret some of popular music’s most iconic songs, and do it all with virtuosity, gravity, and a sense of humour?

FourPlay’s original songs are inspired by rock, pop, post-rock, jazz, klezmer, swing, folk-tronica, hip hop and more.  They also perform knockout covers by a diverse array of bands, from Rage Against The Machine and Radiohead to Leonard Cohen, Robert Johnson and many, many more.

From the FourPlay String Quartet’s website.

That’s curious, I’m sure you will agree, but are these sounds really signs of a vibrant, creative life in music or just the relics of long dead creatures, recycled and repurposed? The striking album artwork is deliberately ambiguous.

The opening track resurrects a Shakespeare sonnet. A clock ticks. A tuneful whistling floats through the air. Plucked strings mark time. Arpeggios suggest a harmony. A lilting recitation remembers a fragile beauty. In the background, soft voices hum in counterpoint to the whistle’s melody. And, finally, a note of bitter resignation brings a fitting end.

“And nothing ‘gainst time’s scythe can make defence, save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.”

It is a spellbinding prelude.

After this, there are nine original poems by Neil Gaiman and two instrumentals. The verses cover themes of maths and myths; of ships wrecked and songs sung; of beliefs and science and loss. Some are serious, others entertain with a tongue-in-cheek humour. As a volume of poetry, it is worth the purchase price. As an album of modern classical music, it shines. The combination is quite magical.

So now, I urge you to visit your favourite streaming service, close this blog page and spend the next 50 minutes in the company of Neil Gaiman and the FourPlay String Quartet.

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