Jazz

David Gray White Ladder [Jazz][mp3 320][h33t][schon55]

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David Gray - White Ladder
Audio CD (March 21, 2000)
Original Release Date: 1999
Format: Alternative, Enhanced
Label: Ato Records
Bitrate: 320 kbps

David Gray's glorious fourth record explodes in a wellspring of spacious, electronica-tinged folk-pop. He uses his bright growl of a voice to memorable effect, chewing on vowel sounds while spinning odes to lost love, the resiliency of young hearts, and the pain of experience. Gray's work finds the universality at the heart of folk music and tweaks it just enough to make it relevant for alternative audiences. ~ Matthew Cooke

English singer-songwriter David Gray recorded his fourth album, White Ladder, at home in 1998 and self-released it after three previous albums garnered critical acclaim and little else. Opening for the likes of Dave Matthews and Radiohead helped up his profile and led to Matthews choosing White Ladder as the U.S. debut for his new ATO label. It's not difficult to hear what attracted Matthews to Gray. There's a strong dose of romantic wanderlust to these tunes. "This Year's Love," with its somber piano notes, captures the drifter feel of earlier Gray work (such as the remarkable "A Gathering of Dust" from his debut)."Sail Away" is "Dock of the Bay" from another side of the shore. Gray clearly loves words, and the way he emphasizes them--spitting them out in contempt one minute, soulfully stretching a note out at other moments--lends his music drama. It's no wonder he's been compared to so heavy an improviser as Van Morrison. There's a spiritual connection there that this strong release makes only more obvious. ~ Rob O'Connor

David Gray has been around for quite some time now and this, his fourth album, is as good as anything he has ever produced. Due to a series of legal wrangles with previous record companies his earlier releases are notoriously difficult to get a hold of. Now, thanks to Dave Matthews new record label "ATO Records", American fans have a chance to hear this excellent singer-songwriter. If I was pushed to come up with a musical comparison, I would have to say that David Gray is a mixture between early Bob Dylan and early Van Morrison (both lyrically and sonically) with a fresh sensibility. This particular album, in addition to brilliant new compositions such as Babylon and White Ladder, also features his brilliant acoustic reworking of the Soft Cell song Say Hello, Wave Goodbye. (The bonus tracks on this record appeared as B-Sides on his European single releases and they too are very good.) I highly recommend this to anyone who is drawn to meaningful poetic lyrics, and encourage you to seek out his earlier albums (particularly his debut A Century Ends) despite their scarcity. ~ KalleR

Geeze, already 250 some-odd reviews...don't suppose mine will make much of a difference, but here goes nonetheless:
I won't pretend that I've been a huge David Gray supporter since he was playing the street corners of little towns in Wales. To be honest, prior to David Gray, my knowledge of Wales "exports" was limited to Dylan Thomas, The Manic Street Preachers, and Stereophonics. So, truth be told, I'm a recent follower. But, I am now devout.

This cd is amazing. A word of caution: it will inspire you to go out and purchase as much as you can of Gray's work. I have thus far gone out and purchased the "Lost Songs" cd, the "Flesh" cd, and the "Century Ends" cd. Each is utterly amazing.

Full of beauty, melancholy, sadness, hope, and happiness, this cd is perfect for almost every setting. Be it relaxing in the evening, your house lit by nothing but candles, driving down the highway, top down on a gorgeous sunny day, or curled up by the window watching rain fall.

This cd has a more electronic-based/backed type sound as you can hear from the singles of "Babylon" and "Please Forgive Me." But, it is a very delicate sound that stays in the background and adds to the songs an amazing texture. It never oppresses the songs, and never becomes over-bearing in, say, the Paul Oakenfold techno sense. I mention this only because his other cd's, for example the ones listed above, are much more stripped down and acoustic. But, don't think for a moment that this is a bad thing. It is very, very wonderful.

I'd also like to give David Gray TREMENDOUS kudos for his beautiful cover of Soft Cell's "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye." As a huge Soft Cell and Marc Almond (the individual formerly in Soft Cell, not the band of the same name), I thought "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" (from their Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret lp), would be something forever placed in the vaults of yesteryear. Gray however, has brought this incredible song back out again. And what a tremendous job he has done. Thank you David.

Should you desire to get another David Gray cd to further explore his sound, I would definitely recommend getting the "Lost Songs" cd. It is almost purely acoustic, with just David and his guitar. It is very, very beautiful, as one test-listen on this site will reveal.

Enjoy. I guarantee you'll be hooked. And, thank you again David for giving us such beautiful music. And, I suppose, thanks are in order to Dave Matthews for bringing this out on his label. ~ Jack Dempsey

David Gray - White Ladder Tracks:
01 Please Forgive Me
02 Babylon
03 My Oh My
04 We're Not Right
05 Nightblindness
06 Silver Lining
07 White Ladder
08 This Years Love
09 Sail Away
10 Say Hello Wave Goodbye
11 Babylon II

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