Pitchfork reports that comics legend Alan Moore, the revered writer responsible for From Hell, Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the comics, NOT the movies) has a couple of new musical collaborations ready, including one that features the one and only Mike Patton [who recently gave WCS's Erin Broadley an EXCLUSIVE interview].

From Pitchfork:

Moore has teamed up with some big music names lately. He's currently working with Gorillaz on an opera about the life of the English alchemist and magician John Dee. And on July 5 in the UK and July 6 in the U.S., Lex will release Unearthing, a box set centered around audio of Moore reading a story with a score by a crew of out-music all-stars.

The Unearthing score is credited to Crook&Flail, a duo comprised of Fog's Andrew Broder and Adam Drucker, better known as abstract rapper Doseone. Others drop in to contribute: Mike Patton, Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite, Jesu/Godflesh frontman Justin Broadrick, and prolific drum-wrecker Zach Hill.

Alan Moore has dabbled with musical collaborations for decades, including very-hard-to-find performance pieces on long-standing interests of his like magick (with a “k”), the secret history of London and William Blake, and a number of projects with his (now Angeleno) mate David J from Bauhaus.

For our money, we hope the Mike Patton collaboration is at the very least as unhinged as “March of the Sinister Ducks,” Moore's amazing '80s oddity (one “Translucia Baboon” is credited as singer–we suspect Mr. Baboon might look like a bearded 19th century alchemist):

More from Pitchfork's report:

The limited edition box set includes the whole two-hour program on both CD and vinyl, an EP of instrumental highlights, a copy of Moore's script, and images by photographer/director Mitch Jenkins. Jenkins and Moore are also working on a photo-illustrated version of Unearthing.

Talking to Pitchfork last year, Doseone told us a bit about the project: “Mitch did all the photos, and so it will be more like a giant coffee table book than anything else. But the writing itself is extremely dense. It's a prose-based novel, and it's too confusing for me to try and correctly encapsulate. But it is about, uh, a co-worker of Alan's and somehow seemingly about Alan himself. And it's about the comic industry, the world of magic, the world we live in, the world we don't live in.”

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