This March, English singer-songwriter David Gray releases his new album 'Gold In A Brass Age', which he'll be bringing to Australia for Bluesfest and his own sideshows.
“I'm very proud of it,” David says of 'Gold In A Brass Age'.
“Every album I pour my heart and soul into, but I feel there's something special happening this time. I think the connection I've made with my producer [Ben de Vries] is a really massive, massive step in the right direction.
“We had such fun making the record. It was such a joyous exercise and there’s such a level of detail and experimentation. There’s not a complacent, repeat trick at any point, each song is its own thing.”
The production of 'Gold In A Brass Age' is something of a family legacy, with Ben being the son of Marius de Vries who produced David's 2005 album 'Life In Slow Motion'. “Ben has so many characteristics that his dad has, it’s almost like this wonderful musicality that’s almost baroque,” David says.
“It has the most beautiful, florid sophistication to some of the ideas he has, a real delicacy, and he's someone who understands music, classical music too.
“There's a sophistication to his ear and the natural musicality that I can see has been stamped straight out of his dad into him. But he’s also got his own quirky take on things, he's a different generation.”
'Gold In A Brass Age' is David's first full-length album since 'Mutineers' in 2014 and sees him taking a more restrained approach, especially in his vocal attack. “There’s a level of detail on the album that’s perhaps unsurpassed in terms of anything I've done before,” David explains.
“The way it works is I basically get the main thrust of the song and the idea really fast usually, so as the song is born we’ll be recording straight away and in one day or half a day I'll get the main sway of the vocal, the main rhythm of the instruments and some kind of groove.
“Then as we start to elaborate on how we might let the song speak in terms of all the different sounds, we’ll try all kinds of manner of things. Some songs had days and days lavished upon them. We’re just trying to make them work, trying to make them be the thing they could be. 'A Tight Ship' is probably the song that took the longest, but it was worth it.”
This April David returns to one of his favourite stages, Bluesfest, and will also play sideshows in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. It will be his first Australian tour since 2015. “I feel like we’ve all got to know each other now and I'm really, really looking forward to it,” he says.
“The gigs last time were really great and I think this is just going to build on that again. The Bluesfest gig is always special – there’s some mad, crazy energy that’s focussed up there. Every gig I've done there is amazing.
“This tour, in the way I've just described how different making the record was, the onstage [performance] will be different again; it will be like watching me live in the studios in some ways.
"We've got live sampling, I've got loopers on my board [plus] vocals, guitar and bass, so it’s like being in the studio as we build the song in front of your ears. It’s really exciting and it's something completely different.”
'Gold In A Brass Age' is released 8 March.
2019 David Gray Tour Dates
Sun 14 Apr - Riverside Theatre (Perth)16-17 Apr - Enmore Theatre (Sydney)
19-20 Apr - Palais Theatre (Melbourne)
Mon 22 Apr - Bluesfest (Byron Bay)
