Mark Knopfler
Privateering

"As the years pass, I've realized that I want to feel free to be English, Scottish, or American as and when I think best. What really matters are the music and the songs, the rest is just bar talk." (Mark Knopfler - summer 2012).

Each new release by Mark Knopfler on the market coinciding with the approach of autumn has become a regular appointment for quite some years now (even those milestones named Dire Straits such as "Making Movies" and "Love Over Gold" saw the light respectively in October 1980 and September 1982), which not many are willing to give up. As we know autumn is a season that tends to darken, the time of year when it's easier to be carried away by what happens around, allowing emotions to flow naturally and why not perhaps finding in a well-chosen sound background, a prodigious balm that aids their growth. The Scottish guitarist has always manifested even more in his solo career, the ability to synthesize his feelings of fulfillment and vigor into music, while also managing to oscillate between restlessness and a tamed impulse.

"Privateering" - that is, the sailing of pirate ships across the seas -, moves in a musical direction already familiar to the reader, made up of folk, country, and a fundamental blues component, characterizing this seventh full length, enriching it with brilliant and sparkling references to the legend of Dire Straits. A work or rather a double CD (the first in the artist's career) where poetry allows the music to absorb with measured ardor the bliss of the offered settings, avoiding falling into the repetitiveness that at times had occurred in the past.

The first disc is a jukebox of carefreeness where the homogeneity of sounds allows you to enjoy tracks where blues reigns supreme ("Hot Or What" and "Don't Forget Your Hat"), but also giving vital space to ballads ("Go Love" and "Miss You Blues") and some surprises ("Corned Beef City") which will pleasantly remind long-time fans of the Glasgow genius of times gone by. Certainly, there are references to Irish tradition ("Yon Two Crows") as well as to the narrative serenity of which the title track is one of the most representative moments of the album, all seasoned with a narrative spontaneity ("Redbud Tree" and "Haul Away") that finds in the creation of exemplary melodies the final piece of a perfect musical mosaic. Paying attention to what is effectively the unofficial b-side (the second CD to be specific...) of "Privateering" it is not difficult to notice an unequivocal compositional balance that leads to the creation of successful black culture manifestos ("Got To Have Something" and "Today Is Okay") as well as calm atmospheric narratives ("Radio City Serenade" and "Bluebird") which are anything but reserve tracks. Being transported by the musical journeys of Knopfler, today even more undisputedly holding a leadership position, also means understanding the importance of a blended overall sound ("I Used To Could" and "Gator Blood") that testifies to how seasoned musicians (Jim Cox on piano, Richard Bennett on bouzouki and various guitars, Paul Franklin on pedal steel, Glenn Worf on bass, among others, not forgetting Guy Fletcher - trusted keyboarder since the O.S.T. "Cal" (1984) - also recognized as the official arranger), are protagonists and no longer transparent members of a backing band. Of course, it is not easy to immediately be on the same wavelength as the guitarist (perhaps after repeated listening, yes), who at sixty years old can conceive songs easily assimilable ("Kingdom Of Gold" and "Dream Of The Drowned Submariner") without being commercial, mostly able to provide the right means to let the mind fly in that rurality that unites the old and the new continent, both expressions of the different colors of the roots of these sounds.

"Privateering" (whose cover shows an evident familiarity with the discreet "Into The Wild" (2007) by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam), represents the natural and why not, personal evolutionary path that the artist has undertaken, artistically confirming even more the departure from the extraordinary path traced with the Dire Straits. More than ninety minutes of music in which is offered a range of palpable linearity of sensations, where the voice as penetrating as it is soothing, allows the tranquility of the atmospheres created by the instruments to best represent the colorful musical landscapes that confirm the flourishing state of grace imbued by the prodigious compositional prolificity of one of the most reserved yet highly decorated subjects of Her Majesty.

[The available versions besides the standard edition of two CDs, include the Deluxe one with a bonus disc that includes a live CD with tracks extracted from the rehearsals for the 2013 tour: "Why Aye Man", "Cleaning My Gun", "Corned Beef City", "Sailing To Philadelphia" and "Hill Farmer's Blues" all taken from Live From Music Bank London 2011; the double vinyl and for the most unsatisfied also the "Super Deluxe Box Set": which includes: two CDs, the double vinyl, a bonus cd with three extra tracks ("Occupation Blues", "River Of Grog" and "Follow The Ribbon"), a DVD documentary titled "A Life In Songs" which contains quite a bit of unreleased material by solo Knopfler and Dire Straits, between interviews and vintage clips. The same box-set includes numbered replicas of original prints, in addition to a credit card allowing you to download an entire concert].