DAVID GRAY - Babylon

What this video is

Released to accompany the re-issue of 'Babylon' in June 2000, this video arrived at a pivotal inflection point for David Gray and the White Ladder album, which had been originally self-released on IHT Records in November 1998 and failed to chart before slowly building a devoted following in Ireland. By 2000, the album had reached number one in Ireland and was being picked up by EastWest in the UK and ATO Records —…

Why it matters

A landmark artefact of the British folk-electronic singer-songwriter movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The video's refusal of conventional performance staging in favour of unadorned urban documentary aesthetics mirrored the lo-fi, DIY production ethos of White Ladder itself, recorded at…

The director

Kieran John Evans (born 8 February 1969) is a Welsh film director and screenwriter born in St Davids, Pembrokeshire. He studied art in Carmarthen and Newport before moving to London, where he worked as a runner for Steven Spielberg's animation company before…