Privateering [VINYL]

Mark Knopfler is one of the finest and most consistent artists Britain has ever produced, from the early Dire Straits albums, listen again to those releases they bare still as great today as when they first appeared. Then The Notting Hillbillies, sadly only one album but still superb, onto the solo years.This is the latest in the solo years, a double album and twenty tracks including folk,blues,rock,and a tinge of country.The title track is as good a piece of MK writing as you'll ever get.The playing throughout is as one would expect superb, the addition of Kin Wilson on harmonica is a masterstroke by one of the best bluesmen on the scene. Having just taken this album away with me and listened to much of it several times now,for me it gets better all the time. There are songs that are immediately enjoyable,others that the melodies and others that take a few plays to realize the full quality of them.Naming songs when they are all new, and where all of them are so good would be a shame.Do please listen to one of 2012's best albums by an absolute master of his craft at the peak of his form, An album of truly lasting pleasure.

Quite a few reviewers here and elsewhere sounding pleasantly surprised to discover the unassuming Dylanesque low-key country/blues 'sound' on this, Knopfler's 7th solo record proper (excluding his many soundtracks)... but that's been the case for pretty much everything he's done post-Dire Straits, and definitely all the records since The Ragpicker's Dream have been roughly in this mould, that is, a mix of trad. British/Celtic folk and Americana, country roots, soft ballads and swinging blues. Ok, there's fewer folkie numbers in 3/4 time here than previously, and the leaning on blues structures is a fair bit heavier here... but the same Celtic stylings on this LP (e.g. on the melancholic 'Haul Away' and 'Kingdom of Gold') have been unmistakable since his debut, Golden Heart, and particularly on his last album Get Lucky. As for the Americana... well, Shari-La (my favourite of his albums) was a very easygoing, rootsy American sounding record (in the best possible sense). Anyway, the important thing is that there's been a near-total non-appearance of extended soloing and Dire Straits-style showtunes ever since he wound that band up (maybe even before if you think about On Every Street's lower-key songs) and for that reason Privateering should be considered a logical continuation for Knopfler; bluesier than before but really still just the latest in a mounting body of low-key gems from one the few truly masterly songwriters currently active, still unfairly critiqued ... but mostly by people who've not heard anything he's done except Brothers In Arms. Half a dozen listens in and Privateering already looks set to be my record of the year (depending on Dylan's latest next week). Better still, it's a double! They normally contain as much chaff as wheat but that's not the case here - clearly he's on a really prolific run and just had too many good songs for one album. Typing this listening to one example, 'Yon Two Crows', the kind of thoughtful story-song he does so well ("The dog lifts his gaze to plead/Believes the wizard has a magic stick/Leans his weight into my tweed/I give an unholy hand to lick"). Absolutely beautiful. Or how about that signature guitar line running through the middle of album opener 'Redbud Tree': sinewy, lilting and effortless strat. Unmistakably Knopfler. And that's just two of twenty songs - I could (but won't) go on. Any could be singled out for special praise. What with the whole being more than the sum of its parts... that makes for quite an album.

There is now a timeless, familiar feel to all his work, a continuity of sound and enjoyment over the years. One is never short-changed; a seasoning of rhythmic, percussive pepper and salt brings this album alive.