Media Reviews of Tracker

[Marijo58]

Guitarist magazine
April 2015


Mark Knopfler’s covered a lot of miles since the days when he walked
the Telegraph Road. .........
he concludes, with a smile.

Thanks a lot for the transcription of this article!!!

[pete_w]

Don't mean to be a jerk, but can we avoid quoting particularly long posts? It's bad enough to scroll through it on a computer, but on a mobile device it's hopeless. It's enough to refer to the interview, e.g. "Thanks for posting the XYZ interview".

[foma]

I think this is pretty cool review with individual tracks commentary. Let's see what Google Translate say to us here:
http://www.bild.de/unterhaltung/musik/mark-knopfler/so-hoert-sich-das-neue-album-an-40101374.bild.html

"Laughs and Jokes and Drinks and Smokes": between blues and folk - hardly anyone mastered this balancing act as Knopfler!

"Basil": The band plays in ¾ time, the guitar sighs Knopfler remembers the poet Basil Bunting.

"River Towns": Shuffling songwriter-folk with a hovering a thoughtless sunken saxophone.

"Skydiver": Unconcerned humming song in the style of "Penny Lane" (Beatles).

"Mighty Man" anthemic epic with slide guitar, violin, flute - as once "Brothers In Arms".

"Broken Bones": Knopfler plays wah-wah guitar, sings about a boxer. The grooviest song! Wah-wah!

"Long Cool Girl": heart poignancy love song . Knopfler's guitar acoustic chirps wistfully.

"Lights in Taormina": Another song about a Elapsed: Knopfler thinks of Sicily, the band plays subtle Latin rhythm.

"Silver Eagle": How condensed Knopfler to deeply touching songs little scenes in my head, is fantastic.

"Beryl": Monument to the writer Beryl Bainsbridge, in the style of "Sultans Of Swing".

"Wherever I Go": a duet with Canadian Ruth Moody, beautiful ode to the silence.

[yontwocrows]

Here is the translation of another German review (WAZ). You can find the original text here: http://www.derwesten.de/kultur/mark-knopfler-erfuellt-alle-erwartungen-aimp-id10443900.html

Mark Knopfler fulfills all expectations

London. "British Grove" in Chiswick, West London - this studio is according to Mark Knopfler"one of the best in the world". And not just because it belongs to him: "You can record analog or digital, use very modern equipment or equipment from the sixties, and you can also combine old and new, as I like to do it." Here the former Dire Straits head Knopfler recorded also his solo album no. 8 "Tracker".

When he's not touring, Knopfler spends his days to tinker about arrangements and to create the musical robes of the songs in "Britsh Grove". He cites the example "and Jokes Laughs and Drinks and Smokes", almost a drinking song to "Tracker", which is probably most clearly influenced by his Scottish roots. On this „Shanty Choir number“ a harp and bagpipes are used. Knopfler lay on thick as far as instruments in this track are concerned.

"That was very funny," smiles the Briton, who is diffident at the beginnig of a conversation and who talks too little rather than too much. In contrast to the furious start number the final song "Wherever I Go" is very slow, very delicate and quiet, a kind of a declaration of love to his best friend Nigel. "We know each other since we were nine."

In between "Tracker" has everything you expect from a Mark-Knopfler album: Beautiful, relaxing, and unique guitar playing, a pleasant sonorous voice in tracks like "Lights of Taormina" or "Basil", grippy Poprocksongs ( "River Towns") and also one or the other faster number such as "Beryl" (a dedication to writer Beryl Bainbridge, who died in 2010), which reminds the Dire Straits classic "Sultans of Swing". Knopfler: "The song plays in the seventies, so the era of 'Sultans of Swing'. She was neither a man nor she had studied in Oxford, nor she came of the upper class. Therefore, many turned up their noses. "

And the song "Silver Eagle" is named after the tour bus in which he and Bob Dylan went on tour in 2013, and for the first time in decades: "That was an adventure, not so bad. I kind of felt younger." He just turned 65th. (Original Text by Steffen Rüth)

[yontwocrows]

And the translation of another one, that you can find here: http://www.welt.de/print/welt_kompakt/kultur/article138275816/Achtes-Soloalbum-eines-unverwechselbaren-Knopflers.html
Eighth solo album of a distinctive Knopfler

 The man is a technology nerd. The countless Panels, recording devices and microphones in his studio in London's British Grove have thousands of knobs and sliders - and Mark Knopfler seems to know every single meaning. His new studio album "tracker" that will be released by the Dire Straits founder on Friday, sounds exactly like that: Highest quality, music, concerning even the smallest detail, the sound of the guitar, clear and pure, and Knopfler's unique voice.

In "Tracker" melancholy comes through in many places of the eleven songs. Knopfler observes his own past. At the opening title "Laughs And Jokes And Smokes And Drinks" for example, where the 65-year-old presents an ode to the good old days of youth. "We were young, so young, and always broke," it says in the chorus.

"The laughter, the jokes and the drinks are still here," said the musician. "Only smoking, I quit, about 15 years ago." But he doesn't think much about how he has to interpret the songs. "I do not think if I should recite them fast or slow, happy or sad," he says.

His record company doesn't give him requirements anymore. He does not know the pressure to publish Revival albums or to revive old music new. "You can always play once again the old things, but the charm is to deal with something new", says Knopfler. In "Tracker" he succeeded

The album "Tracker" appears on 13 March

[LoveExpresso]

Here is the translation of another German review (WAZ). You can find the original text here: http://www.derwesten.de/kultur/mark-knopfler-erfuellt-alle-erwartungen-aimp-id10443900.html

Mark Knopfler fulfills all expectations

London. "British Grove" in Chiswick, West London - this studio is according to Mark Knopfler"one of the best in the world". And not just because it belongs to him: "You can record analog or digital, use very modern equipment or equipment from the sixties, and you can also combine old and new, as I like to do it." Here the former Dire Straits head Knopfler recorded also his solo album no. 8 "Tracker".

When he's not touring, Knopfler spends his days to tinker about arrangements and to create the musical robes of the songs in "Britsh Grove". He cites the example "and Jokes Laughs and Drinks and Smokes", almost a drinking song to "Tracker", which is probably most clearly influenced by his Scottish roots. On this „Shanty Choir number“ a harp and bagpipes are used. Knopfler lay on thick as far as instruments in this track are concerned.

"That was very funny," smiles the Briton, who is diffident at the beginnig of a conversation and who talks too little rather than too much. In contrast to the furious start number the final song "Wherever I Go" is very slow, very delicate and quiet, a kind of a declaration of love to his best friend Nigel. "We know each other since we were nine."

In between "Tracker" has everything you expect from a Mark-Knopfler album: Beautiful, relaxing, and unique guitar playing, a pleasant sonorous voice in tracks like "Lights of Taormina" or "Basil", grippy Poprocksongs ( "River Towns") and also one or the other faster number such as "Beryl" (a dedication to writer Beryl Bainbridge, who died in 2010), which reminds the Dire Straits classic "Sultans of Swing". Knopfler: "The song plays in the seventies, so the era of 'Sultans of Swing'. She was neither a man nor she had studied in Oxford, nor she came of the upper class. Therefore, many turned up their noses. "

And the song "Silver Eagle" is named after the tour bus in which he and Bob Dylan went on tour in 2013, and for the first time in decades: "That was an adventure, not so bad. I kind of felt younger." He just turned 65th. (Original Text by Steffen Rüth)

I am pretty sure I said that on day one after we learned the track names that Silver Eagle is about Bob's Bus.. 

Never heard that he knows Nigel for so long. If it's true, it is a nice story.

LE

[pete_w]

@Love Expresso - Cf. my post about quoting long posts, couldn't you just have included the last line of that review in your quote if you felt it was necessary to have a reference to "Silver Eagle"?

I know I haven't posted much around here, so forgive me for bringing stuff like this up. But these overly long quotes really are annoying.

[yontwocrows]

@LE: I don't think that he means Nigel Hitchcock. I've the feeling he talks about another Nigel

[LoveExpresso]

@Love Expresso - Cf. my post about quoting long posts, couldn't you just have included the last line of that review in your quote if you felt it was necessary to have a reference to "Silver Eagle"?

I know I haven't posted much around here, so forgive me for bringing stuff like this up. But these overly long quotes really are annoying.

I guess you have to live with it.

I agree that sometimes posts are quoted that are directly above, means, the last ones, so there is really no sense in doing so. But when another poster has written something and that something was another review, I thought it would be nice to know what I was talking about and referring to.

Each as he likes, too strong regulations generally kill the fun of writing.

LE

[Marijo58]

Here is the translation of another German review (WAZ). You can find the original text here: http://www.derwesten.de/kultur/mark-knopfler-erfuellt-alle-erwartungen-aimp-id10443900.html

Mark Knopfler fulfills all expectations

London. "British Grove" in Chiswick, West London - this studio is according to Mark Knopfler"one of the best in the world". And not just because it belongs to him: "You can record analog or digital, use very modern equipment or equipment from the sixties, and you can also combine old and new, as I like to do it." Here the former Dire Straits head Knopfler recorded also his solo album no. 8 "Tracker".

When he's not touring, Knopfler spends his days to tinker about arrangements and to create the musical robes of the songs in "Britsh Grove". He cites the example "and Jokes Laughs and Drinks and Smokes", almost a drinking song to "Tracker", which is probably most clearly influenced by his Scottish roots. On this „Shanty Choir number“ a harp and bagpipes are used. Knopfler lay on thick as far as instruments in this track are concerned.

"That was very funny," smiles the Briton, who is diffident at the beginnig of a conversation and who talks too little rather than too much. In contrast to the furious start number the final song "Wherever I Go" is very slow, very delicate and quiet, a kind of a declaration of love to his best friend Nigel. "We know each other since we were nine."

In between "Tracker" has everything you expect from a Mark-Knopfler album: Beautiful, relaxing, and unique guitar playing, a pleasant sonorous voice in tracks like "Lights of Taormina" or "Basil", grippy Poprocksongs ( "River Towns") and also one or the other faster number such as "Beryl" (a dedication to writer Beryl Bainbridge, who died in 2010), which reminds the Dire Straits classic "Sultans of Swing". Knopfler: "The song plays in the seventies, so the era of 'Sultans of Swing'. She was neither a man nor she had studied in Oxford, nor she came of the upper class. Therefore, many turned up their noses. "

And the song "Silver Eagle" is named after the tour bus in which he and Bob Dylan went on tour in 2013, and for the first time in decades: "That was an adventure, not so bad. I kind of felt younger." He just turned 65th. (Original Text by Steffen Rüth)

Thanks YonTwoCrows for the translation of this article!! Very funny to see that they're calling him the Briton because my Dad is a French Briton from Bretagne and his last name like mine is Le Breton which means the  Briton!! I didn't know that you can call a Geordie like that also!!?? Anyway the fact that MK is very influenced by the Scottish Music is one of the main reason why I became a Fan!! 

[pete_w]

Edit: ^^^ Case in point ...

Strong regulation is too much said. I'm only suggesting using a bit of thought when quoting. Even when you edit the quote and post only the relevant parts of the original post, there's always a link to the original post, if someone wants to read it.

But hey, if that's how you guys roll around here, I'll shut up.

[superval99]

@ Marijo58 - A Geordie is still a Briton, the same goes for a Scouser, from Liverpool, but we are both part of Great Britain!        

[Marijo58]

@ Marijo58 - A Geordie is still a Briton, the same goes for a Scouser, from Liverpool, but we are both part of Great Britain!      

Thanks Superval I learned something today!! Great!!

[superval99]

@ Marijo58 - A Geordie is still a Briton, the same goes for a Scouser, from Liverpool, but we are both part of Great Britain!      

Thanks Superval I learned something today!! Great!!

Britons and Bretons - cousins perhaps?     

[robin]

Well in French Brittany is Bretagne and Great Britain is Grande Bretagne so...