David Gray Bouncing Off The Walls With New Songs And Covers

British singer/songwriter David Gray won't be twiddling his thumbs through the rest of the year. According to Gray's website, his "head is alive with new music" and he's been bouncing off the walls with ideas.

"I have been making changes both in the studio and within the band, and have very much gone back to basics in terms of working up songs and then trying to catch them 'live' with the band as tapes, with no click tracks, no layering and no safety net," he wrote on June 27. "After months of struggle, the last few weeks have been liberating. The result is a music that sounds open hearted and joyous, and utterly unselfconscious. To my ears it is as good as anything I've recorded thus far."

The new music is coming together without Gray's longtime drummer and occasional bassist, Clune, after a 14-year working relationship. But the door has been left open for the pair to possibly work together again somewhere down the road.

"Saying goodbye to Clune was a massive decision and not one I took likely, as I'm sure you can imagine," wrote Gray. "Clune is a star to me and always will be, but I think that over the past few years, perhaps as a result of the intensity of the workload, the spark that once drove our creative relationship has diminished a good deal."

Gray will release an album called A Thousand Miles Behind that's comprised of cover songs performed at gigs since 2001. There's no track list for the record, set for release in August, but in the past Gray has covered The Killers' "Smile Like You Mean It," Bob Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings," Tim Buckley's "Song Of The Siren" and Soft Cell's "Say Hello Wave Goodbye," among others.

Gray, who performed at London's Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium on July 7, is slated to play a two-night stand in the city on July 18 and 19 before playing the Blue Balls Festival in Switzerland on July 21.