David Gray goes for gold at York Barbican

That opening statement is a little misleading. as Gray will explain. “This record was finished more than a year ago, and it was going to come out last September, but now it’s March. Time runs away from you.”

Far from slowing down, as a “four-year gap” might outwardly suggest, singer-songwriter Gray is as creative as ever at 50. “I have another project coming up, almost finished, a project that I’ve been thinking about for a while,” he says, without divulging further details.

He also believes in achieving a balance of obligations to his family, his music, his fans. “If you find you’ve not left any personal space,that’s not a recipe for happiness,” he says.

Gold In A Brass Age finds Gray exploring new electronic textures and sound palettes, along with new production techniques, using a cut-and-paste approach to the arrangement of songs.

“With this album, my default position was to do everything differently. I didn’t think ‘this would be a good hook or ‘these lyrics could work for a chorus’. I was keen to get away from narrative,” he says.

Peckham tattoo artist London Boy's artwork for David Gray's Gold In A Brass Age

“Instead of writing melodies, I looked for phrases with a natural cadence, so that the rhythm began with the words. I reimagined where a song might spring from and what form it could take.”

Gray’s adopted home of London has had an impact on his songwriting too, reflected in the album artwork of an Emperor moth with the City of London captured between its wings by Peckham tattoo artist London Boy. “London has its own mysterious, strange identity; it’s oceanic in its vastness,” he says. “It’s an element you are suspended in, and you have to cope with the deluge of information, people, noise, and how you integrate with that.

“I like the theatricality of London, but I also like to escape to nature, going to this pad on the East Coast, in Norfolk, my little bolt hole.” He enjoys walking trips too, in the Lake District or on the Cornish coast.

Summing up Gold In A Brass Age, Gray considers it to be a celebratory record, but also one that reflects on the passage of time. “Time ticking by is a theme that recurs throughout the record. Fragility, renewal, a changing of perspective,” he says.

“I definitely do feel in my best place as a musician right now. Knowing life can’t go on forever deepens your pleasure in realising life is a rare and wonderful thing when we don’t know how much time we have left.

“Certainly I’ve never enjoyed a writing and recording an album as much as I have this one: it’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders over the past five or six years.”

David Gray plays York Barbican, March 30, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 854 2757 or at yorkbarbican.co.uk