Graham Coxon announces new soundtrack for graphic novel ‘Superstate’

Graham Coxon has announced a soundtrack album to accompany the new graphic novel Superstate.

The project has seen Coxon working with writers Alex Paknadel and Helen Mullane to devise 15 different stories for the novel, each of which is soundtracked by an original song that has been written and recorded by the Blur guitarist.

“Superstate is a story of escape in a society where war rages between the forces of negativity and positivity, encouragement and discouragement,” Coxon said in a statement.

“Where only the struggle from oppression, chaos and brutality leads to the fragile road to freedom. A road that burns its way through the far reaches of space to a planet called… heaven.”

Superstate is described as a “high-concept world,” as the combination of the graphic novel and musical mediums converge for a “unique audio-visual landscape.” The graphic novel portion of the project is composed of 15 stories which feature the work of 15 different graphic artists, along with that of writers Alex Paknadel and Helen Mullane. The graphic artists featured in the novel include Christian Dibari, Marie Llovet and Ryan Kelly. 

The accompanying album portion of Superstate features 15 new songs, all from Coxon himself. Coxon also contributed the book’s cover artwork. Other musicians featured on the soundtrack include Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne, Sharlene Hector, Valentina Pappalardo and Vula.

The creative direction of the entire project was spearheaded by Coxon, as the writers and artists worked to realize concepts that were originally inspired by Coxon’s ideas. The whole process was led first by new music that he wrote exclusively for Superstate. Each story in the graphic novel is accompanied by it’s own individual track.

Superstate and its accompanying soundtrack album are released on August 27 in association with Z2 Comics, having previously been set for a March release.

The project has been previewed this week with the opening story from the novel, ‘Yoga Town’, which you can see below.

Town’, which you can see below.

You can see a break-down of the 15 stories of Superstate, as well as their specific graphic artist credits, below.

1. Yoga Town (Artist: Kendall Goode)
2. Uncle Sam (Artist: Eryk Donovan)
3. It’s All In Your Mind (Artist: Andrade Estevez)
4. Only Takes A Stranger (Artist: Anna Readman)
5. L.I.L.Y. (Artists: Luisa Russo)
6. Bullets (Artist: Goran Gligovic)
7. I Don’t Wanna Wait For You (Artist: Ryan Kelly)
8. The Astral Light (Artist: Soo Lee)
9. Heaven (Buy a Ticket) (Artist: Koren Shadmi)
10. The Ball of Light (Artist: Vasilis Lolos)
11. Tommy Gun (Artist: Minerva Fox)
12. Goodbye Universe (Artist: Kim Canales)
13. Butterfly (Artist: Dave Chisholm)
14. We Remain (Artist: Ivan Stojković)
15. Listen (Artist: Taylan Kurtulus)