While everybody’s been obsessing over his older brother’s forthcoming album, David Knopfler has released a fresh record too. Titled “Crow Gifts” and available for streaming now, with a very limited run of CDs planned for February 8th, it marks the first two-year gap in the annual-issue schedule veteran implemented back in 2019 – but then, 2020 saw him put out a brace of platters, and David also was recently involved in HELD BY TREES’ "Solace" so Knopfler wasn’t doing nothing in the interim.
Close to two decades after their last comeback, Finnish prog-jazz giants TASAVALLAN PRESIDENTTI still evoke much interest in the genre’s connoisseurs, which is why there’s a constant demand for recordings from the ensemble’s halcyon days, especially their early ’70s era. Then, the band took part in Ruisrock Festival in Turku on an annual basis – only no one bothered to have taped their shows. Or so it seemed until recently, until three numbers from the group’s inaugural, 1970 appearance at the event saw the light of day in 2021′ and now their next outing there is ready for issue too.
Forty-five may not be a nice round number, and it’s not really a jubilee, but when a band have intermittently existed for so long it’s quite a milestone to celebrate – and that’s what the Brummies of UB40 are doing now by releasing, on April 19th, “UB45”: a 14-track collection of new and old, although freshly recut, numbers which bring together the reggae group’s past and present.
Playing remotely on other artists’ records became a steady source of income for many a classic rock veteran, and those other artists make a unique selling point out of such guest spots – not Paul White and Mark Soden, though. The British duo known as CYDONIA COLLECTIVE have worked with Gordon Giltrap whose guitar magic fits so finely in their ambient soundscapes, and recently the Worcestershire masters decided to finally gather all the joint efforts on a single release.
Over the course of his five-decade-long career Pat Metheny has released, solo and with various combos the guitarist formed, rather many platters, and yet every time he issues a concert record it’s an event of sorts, because none of the veteran’s live albums are alike. Here’s why the set he and his trio played at in Switzerland on July 9th 2004 was televised and widely bootlegged – to an extent where, almost twenty years down the line, the artist decided to bestow an official status on that on-stage document and see it properly out on February 2nd.
