User:Rock drum/Clockwork Quartet

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The Clockwork Quartet is a multimedia project, designed and produced by creative studio Original Content London formed in London, UK in 2008. They describe their music as "steampunk, folk narrative songs". In character, the band members play a quartet and the passengers of a train whom they entertain. All of the band's music is released under Creative Commons licenses and is free.

Formation and early releases: 2008-11
Edward Saperia ("the Magician" ) formed the group in September 2008, with Patrick Gleeson. Two songs were recorded and released through the project's website and the group played their first show in October 2009.

Relaunch and graphic novel: 2012-present
The project was re-launched in August 2012 with a new website. With the prologue of the graphic novel came the release of a new song, entitled "Closer: an elegy to the Scholar's quest". The website was to publish 80 chapters of the graphic novel, on a monthly basis, which would be "quite dark".

Storyline
The cast of The Clockwork Quartet play members of the quartet or the passengers of the train on which they peform. The graphic novel is set in a parallel Victorian England where a "young and paranoid Queen" is the ruler of a large but unstable British Empire, whose crown was only won after a civil war during which her younger brother was taken into hiding, thought dead. His return to "claim what is rightfully his" is central to the storyline.

Original cast

 * Ed Saperia;— Magician
 * Emma Butterworth — General's Wife
 * Patrick Gleeson — Conductor
 * Hannah Ballou — Raconteuse
 * Hugo Sheppard — Fugitive
 * Ash Gardner — Engineer
 * Maral Mohammadi — Cellist
 * Noura Sanatian — Violinist
 * Nadia Walsh — Guitarist
 * Stuart Lawson — Bass Banjolier
 * Will Segerman — Lover/Nathaniel Fox
 * Dr Matthew Williamson — Doctor
 * Jason Griffiths — Scientist
 * Will Sprunt — Chocolatier

Musical style and influences
The group's music was described in The Guardian as "tarnished" and "bittersweet". An article in NME described it as "Dresden Dolls-esque [...] bizarre and morbidly dark".

Musical releases
Three songs have been released by the project:
 * "The Watchmaker's Apprentice"
 * "The Doctor's Wife"
 * "Closer"

Related projects

 * Heredox, a tile placement game which fits in with the story
 * Trotify, originally designed as merchandise for the group, Trotify is a product manufactured by creative studio Original Content London which, affixed to the front brake mount of a bicycle, bangs to halves of coconut together, making a horse hoof-like sound.