Multi-platinum, Brit and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter DAVID GRAY yesterday released the track Through To Myself. Originally only available as a secret track on the CD release of Gray’s 7 million selling, trailblazing album, White Ladder, the track arrives ahead of a special remastered 20th anniversary edition of White Ladder, which will be released on 14th February 14, 2020.
Available on CD and for the first time ever available on vinyl, there will also be a deluxe 2xCD edition and 4xLP version which will include White Ladder rarities and B-sides (including Through To Myself), plus an extensive booklet with stories written by Gray about the whole White Ladder experience. Watch the new video for Through To Myself here.
In conjunction with the album release, Gray will embark on a 39-date tour of UK, European and North American shows; White Ladder: The 20th Anniversary Tour. Commencing at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena on 20th March 2020 and including London’s The 02 on 26th March, the shows will see Gray perform White Ladder with all the original band members and with all the original equipment to recreate the record in its entirety, plus a set of the greatest hits.
Speaking about Through To Myself, Gray says; “The producer working on White Ladder, Iestyn Polson, used to play video games. Relaxation for him was blowing the shit out of things. Because all those games had loads of hidden chambers, when it came to mastering the album we had a few extra things lying around, including this track Through To Myself which we decided to make a hidden track. People often put secret tracks at the end of CDs, so the last track goes on for about 4 weeks, but Iestyn said ‘There’s another place you can put a secret track, and that’s right at the front of the album, before zero’. So we put it before Please Forgive Me and kept quiet.”
White Ladder was born of difficult circumstances. Gray had been struggling on the margins, swimming against the tide of Britpop, grunge, hip hop and electro. “Futility was so thick on the ground it was utterly soul destroying.” He asked himself some difficult questions: “Can you make a better record? Can you write a better song? The decision was to open up and give it everything I’ve got.” Written and recorded on minimal budget in his Stoke Newington bedroom, David experimented with drum machines and electronic elements, aided by drummer Craig McClune and engineer Polson.
White Ladder is one of 11 complex and heartfelt albums Gray has recorded in a career that spans 25 years. Says Gray, “What happened with White Ladder involved more than music. It was a sort of heart and soul moment of total surrender for everybody involved, for me and the audience. That was it. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
See him perform at the First Direct Arena in Leeds on March 27th.