What, me worry?

David Gray has been talking about the recording of his A New Day At Midnight album, which is due through IHT on October 28.

Speaking from his London home, Gray is quick to dispel the notion that it's going to be White Ladder Part 2.

"It's generally unhealthy to be concerning yourself too much with what other people might think," he reflects. "The task I faced was to get past all that, and get on with the job of writing and recording some music that articulated how I was thinking and feeling in the here and now.

"When recording started, there were lots of songs lying around from the previous few years," he remembers. "I really believed that they were important songs, singles, whatever. Hardly any of them made it. As soon as the new songs started to come there was a freshness and a mystery to the recording process that the older songs couldn't bring."

Despite having a more or less unlimited budget, Gray opted to record again in his own 20 x 10 foot studio.

"It is funny using such a tiny studio," says David. "There are limitations to that. You can't get a piano in there for one thing. This time, at least, we had some decent microphones so we could record the drums properly. It's been done to a higher level but it still feels home made.

"We just decided that that's our vibe at this point in time. I'm not arsed about making some super-clean sounding studio record. I like the lo-fi quality. We just took up where we left off.

"Once you've got all your anxieties out of your system, it's the same old process, it's a simple thing."