David Gray once – quite literally – captured the sound of the city. His breakthrough album, White Ladder, was recorded in his bedroom in north-east London with such a DIY set-up that its biggest single, Babylon, features the sound of a car driving by outside. Some 26 years later, Gray is still inspired by the chaos of urbanity. Shortly before our interview, for instance, feeling rundown, he was caught in a torrential downpour while on London’s Marylebone Road, when an unexpected sight immediately lifted his mood.
“This Deliveroo driver came past on a bike, with his hands off the handlebars and he was singing his head off,” Gray laughs over video call. “In the pissing rain!
You don’t really get that anywhere else. You get this mad stuff: these weird confluences of energy. I love the theatricality of the city. It’s endlessly replenishing; it’s never the same twice. But it is a demanding environment.