Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)As an avid fan, even I was getting a little tired of cheesy love songs with cheeky lyrics that have come since White Ladder. Foundling abandons all that, and comes at you with inward, intimate, and beautiful songs.
I don't understand other reviews and critics that compare this with previous albums, and say it's "nothing new". The closest album to this in Gray's portfolio is Lost Songs which was written nearly twenty years ago! This album doesn't have cheesy-pop songs like Stella the Artist or Be Mine from recent records. Some of the songs on Foundling, such as We Could Fall in Love Tonight or Old Father Time are in a different league; a lot more dynamic and thoughtful.
A lot of times musicians have a hard time staying personal an intimate as they get older. I think of early records of Coldplay, Radiohead, and the Counting Crows that have the passion and restlessness of youth. When you listen to later offerings they become an abstraction of themselves, almost a comical, heavily marketed version of what the passion in their early work. Think of Coldplay's Shiver vs. Fix You or the Counting Crows Mr. Jones vs. American Girls. . . It's very difficult to stay relevant after your first few records.
Gray, at 42 years old, somehow with Foundling found that youthful, restless, passionate voice again. The first time I heard this record I admit I was incredibly surprised at the lyrics and themes of the music; it blew me away. This is the kind of offering of a singer/songwriter bursting onto the scene.
This album is incredible, and comes recommended to anybody who enjoys deeply personal, moving music. This is the kind of album to play on a Fall day over a cup of tea while rain falls gently.
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Foundling -- the stunning new effort by internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter DavidGray -- begins with those evocative and somewhat mysterious words. What follows is anextraordinary song cycle of rare and timeless power that bears a rather fitting title. Aspeople today may or may not remember, the word "foundling" is defined as "an infantfound after its unknown parents have abandoned it." And as Gray puts it with a warmlaugh, "Foundling sort of arrived at my door without my asking it to, so it felt veryappropriate for this album."In a sense, Foundling also marks another notable arrival -- the second coming of DavidGray's own second coming -- and one that truly "sprung like a wild orchid" in its ownright. By 2005, Gray had already enjoyed what has been a rather distinguished career asa singer-songwriter and recording artist, having sold more than 12 million albums,including his global left-field smash, 1998's White Ladder, which remains the single bestselling album in Irish history. Gray had by this point already won two Ivor Novello Awards,a Q award, two Brit nominations and a GRAMMY nomination.But not a man or artist content to ever rest on his laurels, Gray decided that the time hascome to shake things up in a significant way. So in 2006, David Gray decided to disbandhis longtime backing group, and to attempt to reconnect with his music beforerecording his excellent 2009 album Draw The Line with a new group of players at hisstudio The Church. "Draw the Line was essentially about the band, and four peopleplaying together in a room," says Gray. "But you can't just keep going for unlimitedtakes. So on days when I felt everyone was getting a bit worn down and frayed at theedges -- and that it might be good to give everyone a little space -- I'd go into the studioon my own or maybe with one other person. I'd either work on tracks we alreadyrecorded or try to record other songs with just me on piano or guitar. That's a lot of whateventually became Foundling.In essence, Foundling became an alternate musical universe to Draw The Line. As Grayputs it," Foundling was an album done in slices of time in between band recordingsessions. Eventually, I had the thought of recording and then mixing two separate albumsduring the same time period, so I then went back and took a closer look at the tracksand recorded a few overdubs and attempted to add a few finishing touches so thatthey sounded more complete. That's how Foundling became like a tapestry that I hungon the other side of The Church. And I kept walking over and making little marks on it,and before you knew it, what started off as a side project was holding my attention aswell as the main work."In the end, Foundling looks like the most gorgeous and minimalist musical tapestry thatDavid Gray has ever created -- one that alternately suggests the early work of The Band,Randy Newman and Tom Waits, but without sounding remotely like a piece of nostalgia.Like the recent productions of T-Bone Burnett, this is music that seems to exist almostoutside of time, yet feels fantastically modern and stripped of all unnecessary varnish."Because I've done so much recording lately, I think you eventually get braver," saysGray. "You think `I can go even further with this - I can do even less.' So there's definitelya sense here of reducing the songs to their absolute bare minimum. It's that core notionof getting to the gist of the song. On Draw The Line and in a different way here, I didn'tconcern myself with trying to use very current sounds that might date badly. I justfocused on getting the song down by the simplest means possible."Working this way was ultimately very emancipating for Gray. "We were very unfussy onthis record," he says. "I felt like this was my private record. I didn't get too picky with thevocals, and I didn't have to think about things like potential airplay. So I threw all of thatstuff out and it's actually a wonderfully liberating feeling. You think, `This hasn't got a catin hell's chance of getting on the radio, so let's make this the way we feel it ought to bemade. We just made it the way we wanted to."When it's pointed out that he was always a bit of a left-field success story, and thatFoundling might find a home on the airwaves simply because it's so good, he laughs andadds, "I could see these songs doing well at the cinema or maybe on TV because thereis a cinematic quality to some of the stuff. Maybe that could unlock the record in someway, but it's hard to imagine it getting on the radio as it stands. But who cares anyway?Fuck it, we love it.""Frankly, I can't wait for this bloody thing to come out because I'm still tearing my hairout about what to leave in and not," Gray adds with a hearty laugh. "It's basically therecord I've been wanting to make for a long time and it's as strong a statement as WhiteLadder in its own way. The album is like a stepping off point for what might happen next.It's like I'm really putting my money where my mouth is with this one."FOUNDLING: SONG-BY-SONG WITH DAVID GRAY:ONLY THE WINE: "Only The Wine" was born out of a little guitar motif with a slight nodtoward "Norwegian Wood." That first line was key: "Sprung like a wild orchid." I thoughtthat the whole song sounded like something woody -- something you'd find growing in afield. When we recorded "Only The Wine," the song had this beautiful warm sound.Everyone was playing quite tentatively and innocently because we hadn't settled intothat whole "We know what we're doing" feeling. So this song had the sense I love ofplayers still reaching for something.FOUNDLING: This was a key track because of the soundscape of it. It's just a two chordthing, and yet it feels like new territory to me. For me, "Foundling" is a sort of a roadmarker left at the end of the last recording session to tell me where to start next timearound. Like, "Start there next time and just keep going further out." There's no use tryingto unwrap the lyrics for this song or "Only the Wine" -- it's just bring your own picturesbecause that's all I'm creating here, and make your own meaning too.FORGETTING: This one is self-explanatory to the point that it would be stupid to explain itwhen it's so obvious what it's about. The lyrics came first for a change here. Whathappened during this whole period of this recording is that the joy of words andlanguage and writing came back to me full force. That's still with me, and I think that'swhere I'm strongest and it's where I'll be concentrating a lot of my energies next timearound. So I think there may be a few more lyrics first scenarios around the corner for me.GOSSAMER THREAD: This song came to me some time ago, and I just got this really strongpicture of a person, this semi-derelict person, just drifting from city to city, hanging on tolife as if by a gossamer thread. We all know how that feels sometimes. In terms ofrecording, as a piece of playing, it took a lot of effort to get it all in one take, and by theend of the session we were so worn out we just put it to one side and didn't listen to it formonths. It was the very last thing we mixed on the record, and when we put up thefaders it was the most pleasant surprise of the whole mixing session. It sounded great andit just sort of mixed itself.IN GOD'S NAME: It's the song I wrote to my friend Bryan Glancy, an English singersongwriter who also inspired Elbow's record The Seldom Seen Kid. He was a greatcharacter and a dear friend to us all, and he died shortly after I wrote this song with himin mind. "In God's Name" became part one, and I wrote another part that will be anextra track on the album called "Fixative," which together represent my own littlehomage to Bryan. A very simple idea and I don't know how to elaborate on it. Whatbrought the track together was we got the hurdy gurdy man in to play on it. That'ssomething you don't get to say every day.THE OLD CHAIR: When I talk about how minimal Foundling is, I must remember "The OldChair" is on there with a huge orchestra that kicks in at the end. It's a bit early Tom Waitsthat one, and proudly so. The song is about old people and in a way it's definitely acousin of some of those great songs John Prine's written like "Hello In There." It's obviouslynot a very popular subject for a pop song, with a few exceptions like "Eleanor Rigby."The reason the song got started was unusual. I was doing some writing for an animationproject to do with these rescue dogs, and the original working title for the project was"The Old Chair." So that's where the title came from, even though it had nothing to dowith the final song. Still, I quite like having an assignment to work on, it can change theparameters of your thinking in a very useful way.WE COULD FALL IN LOVE AGAIN TONIGHT: Well, this is a very romantic song, and I haven'twritten many of those in recent years. And in this context, it was almost gutsy to featuresome breathy saxophone on this track. I was thinking of "When Teardrops Fall" by BobDylan from Oh Mercy. Or maybe Stan Getz's saxophone on "Girl From Ipanema." Thatwas what I wanted there. Sometimes I like to record without using bass because I feelyou can get a starker more emotional result. Bass can sometimes normalize things andmake a song seem too comfortable and familiar.HOLDING ON: This came from the session when the new band first came together -- thesame session as the title track from Draw The Line was recorded. Neil MacColl's guitarpart here is beautiful. I've written a song called "Hold On," "Hold On To Nothing," andnow "Holding On," so I'm getting some grief from the boys, like, "Write some decenttitles, Dave."A NEW DAY AT MIDNIGHT: This song actually dates back to the album A New Day AtMidnight from 2002. That' when I wrote it, and it gave its title to that album. This is theoldest recording that's on the album. I kept this one back because I thought there was abetter moment for the song, and this is it. I'm getting some grief about this title toobecause it's the same as the 2002 album. It's a simple, uplifting kind of song, and I'm veryhappy about the horn arrangement, which I think came out great.WHEN I WAS IN YOUR HEART: This song I wrote a good few years ago, and it just hadsomething. We did it up as a band version first and I felt we hadn't really taken it anyfurther, so then I stripped it back. Lestyn Polson, my producer, had so much to do withthe colour of this record and the soundscape of it. He did a brilliant job of presenting thesimple things. We used a lot of old reverb effects, and you can hear a good example onthe vocals in this track. A strange, quirky little song, and I'm glad it's finally going to seethe light of day.DAVEY JONES' LOCKER: This whole song came pretty much fully formed out of asoundcheck jam. It virtually wrote itself. Then afterwards I went back and added a fewmore lines to it, and tidied up a few loose ends. Then I got the same people fromonstage into the studio and we got it down 'live' in a couple of takes. I can't reallyunravel the imagery too much without making it sound trite, but the lyric describesheading down under the surface of things into a strange and dreamy world
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