Singer song writer David Gray is coming to Cambridge this weekend as part of a UK tour celebrating his new album Gold In A Brass Age.
The release is his first album of new material in four years and the 11th album release in a career spanning more than 25 years.
Produced by Ben DeVries, son of producer and sound track composer Marius, he says the work finds him in a renewed creative form.
Using a cut and paste approach to the arrangement of songs, the album’s atmospheric and experimental undertones are evident throughout, Gray says.
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.
Gray said: “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 narrative.
“Instead of writing melodies, I looked for phrases with a natural cadence, so that the rhythm began with the words.
“I re-imagined where a song might spring from and what form it could take.”
Gold In A Brass Age is his 11th album and sees Gray’s unmistakable vocal hushed in many places to an intimate falsetto.
• David Gray is at Cambridge Corn Exchange on Saturday March 16.
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