Music with Eddie Rowley
Gold In A Brass Age, in March.
This week, he gave us a taste of what to expect with the release of the album’s first single, ‘The Sapling’, and it sees Gray revelling in his passion for songwriting, pushing himself into unfamiliar terrain and surprising himself as much as his fans along the way.
The hypnotic lead single sees Gray reflecting on the brevity of life. “Time ticking by is a theme that recurs throughout the record,” says Gray. “It’s about fragility, renewal and a changing of perspective.”
Gold In A Brass Age will be Gray’s 11th album in a career spanning more than 25 years. Along the way he’s had several Brit and Grammy nominations and notched up three number one UK albums, including the breakout multi-platinum White Ladder.
And it all started in Ireland for the Welshman when White Ladder took him all the way to the top of the charts in this country and lit a fire under his career.
It was Gray’s fourth album and he had been dropped by record giant EMI at the time. Looking back on that period, Gray says he recognised the connection his previous shows had made with Irish audiences, so he decided to focus on this country.
It paid off. By the late 90s, there was hardly an Irish home that didn’t have a copy of the White Ladder album. “You guys ‘got it’ before anyone else did,” he acknowledges. The album sold seven million worldwide.
Gay has also announced new Irish shows at the Royal Theatre, Castlebar, Co Mayo, on April 4 and Dublin’s Bord Gais Energy Theatre on April 5 and 6, 2019.