DAVID GRAY Announces 17 Date UK & Ireland Tour

DAVID GRAY Releases his new single ‘A Tight Ship’ - Listen Now

DAVID GRAY has confirmed release details for a new album Gold In A Brass Age – his first album of new material in four years – alongside a seventeen-date tour of the UK for 2019. 

The album will be available on March 8 through IHT Records / AWAL Recordings, with first single ‘The Sapling’ out now. Produced by Ben DeVries, son of producer and soundtrack composer Marius, Gold In A Brass Age finds Gray in renewed creative form. The album arrives just ahead of a run of headline shows, commencing at Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on Friday, 15th March and including London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, 17th March before culminating with two nights at Dublin’s Bord Gais Theatre on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th April.

Gold In A Brass Age is defined by an intuitive approach from Gray, exploring new electronic textures and sound palettes, along with new production techniques in the process. Using a cut and paste approach to the arrangement of songs, the album’s atmospheric and experimental undertones are evident throughout. The album’s title is drawn from Raymond Carver’s short story Blackbird Pie, and informed by the regenerative cut and thrust of Gray’s adopted home of London and a fascination with the natural world which has long since consumed his time outside of music. The album’s striking artwork – for which Gray sought out Peckham-based tattoo artist London Boy – depicts an Emperor moth with the City of London captured between its wingspan.

Speaking about the creation of Gold In A Brass Age, Gray says; “With this album, my default position was to do everything differently. I didn’t think ‘this would be a good hook or ‘these lyrics could work for a chorus’. I was keen to get away from the narrative. Instead of writing melodies, I looked for phrases with a natural cadence, so that the rhythm began with the words. I reimagined where a song might spring from and what form it could take.”

Written in breaks between several month-long tour stints – which included a US co-headline run of shows with Alison Krauss – Gold In A Brass Age sees Gray’s unmistakable vocal hushed in many places to an intimate falsetto, to compelling effect. Hypnotic lead single & album-opener ‘The Sapling’ bears out the nuanced approach in spades, with Gray’s rumination on the brevity of life tempered by layered vocals and a brass section including cor anglais and baritone sax. “Time ticking by is a theme that recurs throughout the record’ says Gray. “Fragility, renewal, a changing of perspective.”

Gold In A Brass Age will be David Gray’s eleventh album in a career that spans over 25 years, several Brit and Grammy nominations, and three No.1 UK albums, including for the breakout multi-platinum White Ladder. It is also a vital new collection of songs from an artist still revelling in his passion for song-craft, pushing himself into unfamiliar terrain, surprising himself as much as his fans along the way.

 

Live Dates: 

Fri, 15 Mar        Cardiff            St David’s Hall

Sat, 16 Mar        Cambridge        Corn Exchange

Sun, 17 Mar        London            Royal Festival Hall

Tue, 19 Mar        Brighton            Dome

Wed, 20 Mar        Southend            Cliffs Pavilion

Fri, 22 Mar        Manchester        Bridgewater Hall

Sat, 23 Mar        Nottingham         Royal Concert Hall

Sun, 24 Mar        Gateshead        Gateshead

Tues, 26 Mar        Liverpool            Philharmonic Hall

Wed, 27 Mar        Bournemouth        Pavilion Theatre

Fri, 29 Mar        Birmingham        Symphony Hall

Sat, 30 Mar        York            Barbican

Sun, 31 Mar        Glasgow            Royal Concert Hall

Tues, 2 Apr        Belfast            Waterfront

Thur, 4 April        Castlebar            Royal Theatre

Fri, 5 April        Dublin            Bord Gais Theatre

Sat, 6 April        Dublin            Bord Gais Theatre

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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