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Anthony David Collection

Nine tracks from an Atlanta songwriter whose voice is warm enough to disguise how sharp the writing underneath it is.

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Anthony David

Anthony David is a songwriter first, and he came to notice partly through his long association with India.Arie — they have written together, recorded together, and his best-known song, "Words", is the kind of record that spreads by word of mouth rather than by promotion.

His voice is the opposite of showy: a mid-range, slightly husky instrument used conversationally, with acoustic guitar frequently at the centre of the arrangement. That places him in the Atlanta strand of neo-soul that grew up alongside the Philadelphia and Chicago scenes without ever getting the same attention.

What distinguishes the catalogue is the writing. His songs are specific, funny in places, and unusually willing to sit in ambivalence rather than resolving.

What to listen for

"As Above So Below" is the best thing here and the most musically ambitious — a title drawn from hermetic philosophy, used for a song about correspondence between inner and outer life.

"4evermore" is the one most listeners find first, and "Body Language" is the most immediate.

"Everybody Wants To Rule The World" is the Tears for Fears cover, and it is one of the better soul readings of an eighties pop song — slowed right down, with the paranoia in the lyric brought forward.

"Booed Up" with Mylah is a reading of the Betty Wright song, and "Charge" with Carmen Rogers is the best duet here.

"Ayodele (Joy Comes Home)" is the most explicitly African-referencing thing in his catalogue, and "Amber" and "I Don't Mind" are the deep cuts.

Go deeper

Acey Duecy (2008) and As Above So Below (2011) are the two albums to start with.

India.Arie's catalogue is the obvious companion. For the Atlanta soul scene more widely: Algebra Blessett, Julie Dexter and Van Hunt all belong in the same conversation and are all worth the effort of tracking down.

Listening note: the guitar is the tell. Most soul singers of his generation built records from keyboards and programming; his sit on an acoustic figure he plays himself, which is why they feel closer to a songwriter's record than to an R&B one. It also means the songs survive being stripped down — there is no production trick holding them up.

Start with the albums rather than the singles; his records are sequenced as arguments and lose their shape taken apart.

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