And the endless stream of David Bowie tributes continues…

Amanda Palmer, the felicitously named, real-life Twin Peaks reference and creative force behind the Dresden Dolls, has teamed up with composer Jherek Bischoff on Strung Out In Heaven: A Bowie String Quartet Tribute.

The record features contributions from Anna Calvi (who played guitar and sang on Blackstar), actor John Cameron Mitchell (who sang on Heroes), and Palmer’s author husband, Neil Gaiman.

The six-song EP, which Palmer financed using her Patreon supporters, is now available for a listen on Bandcamp–you can also buy it for just a buck. The proceeds will be split between Bowie’s publisher and the Tuft’s Medical Center’s cancer research wing.

Pitchfork published a lengthy statement written by Palmer, which details the project and eulogizes Bowie:

“Music is the binding agent of our mundane lives. It cements the moments in which we wash the dishes, type the resumes, go to the funerals, have the babies. The stronger the agent, the tougher the memory, and Bowie was NASA-grade epoxy to a sprawling span of freaked-out kids over three generations. He bonded us to our weird selves. We can be us. He said. Just for one day.

The next day I was on the phone to Jherek, discussing another project (and I was feeling a bit trapped in the non-productive new-mother cave, so we joked that we should do a flash Bowie tribute. And suddenly, we weren’t joking. I had funding from my 7,000 fans on Patreon to “make stuff.” What better “stuff”? We started that night, giving ourselves a deadline of two weeks to release it as a surprise. I emailed a bunch of visual artist friends that night.”

Palmer and Bischoff worked furiously to finish the ghostly project, and it’s no small feat that they were able to release it less than a month after Bowie’s death – a fitting tribute to the man that worked so arduously himself. She ended the statement thusly:

“Bowie worked on music up to the end to give us a parting gift. So this is how we, as musicians, mourn: keeping Bowie constantly in our ears and brains.

The man, the artist, exits. But the music, the glue; it stays. It never stops binding us together.

Goodbye, Starman.”

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HT: Pitchfork

IMAGE: Jimmy King