David Gray has released his new single, Heart and Soul, ahead of his twelfth album Skellig, which is out on February 19th.
The new album was inspired by the famous rocky islands off the coast of Co. Kerry, the most westerly point in Ireland, which had a starring role in two of the new Star Wars movie as the refuge of Luke Skywalker.
Skellig also appeared on the cover of Ash's most recent album, Islands, and Gray, who was forced to cancel his White Ladder 20th anniversary tour last year due to the pandemic, has said the story of how the islands became a pilgrimage site for monks in 600AD has haunted his imagination for years.
"The more I contemplated the idea of a small group of people landing on those rocks and establishing a monastic life there, the more overpowered I became by a dizzying sense of awe," he said.
"How close to God could you possibly wish to get? Life must have been unbelievably hard for them and trying to fathom the deep spiritual conviction that compelled them to escape the mediaeval world lead me to acknowledge my own deepest longings to be free of all the endless human noise that we now so readily accept as being such an inescapable part of our day to day lives.
"Dreams of revelation, dreams of a cleansing purity, dreams of escape. Ideas that I think almost any 21st century person shouldn’t find it too hard to relate to!"
Skellig is the second Gray album to be produced by Ben de Vries, and the thirteen tracks are said to depart from the shimmering electronics of 2019's Gold In A Brass Age and embark on a "sparser, communal soundscape with the atmospheric songs centring themselves around six-part vocals with Gray trading his signature gravel for a softer tone".
Recorded prior to the pandemic, the album sessions took place at Edwyn Collins’ Helmsdale studio on the Sutherland coast, with De Vries and Gray finessing the mix throughout lockdown. The album’s artwork is created by former art school graduate Gray himself.
Mossy Nolan of The Silken Same, bassist Robbie Malone, cellist Caroline Dale, David Kitt, and Sligo singer Niamh Farrell also feature on the new album.
