Mark Knopfler – Ahead Of The Game

Mark Knopfler will release his tenth solo studio album on April 12th 2024 on his own British Grove label via EMI. Entitled One Deep River, it features 12 unhurriedly elegant new Knopfler songs, and his warm Geordie vocal tone, his poetic storytelling lyrics and deft, richly melodic guitar playing are all present and correct and as dazzling as ever.

The first single from the album Ahead Of The Game, a wistful, perhaps autobiographical, story about a singer/songwriter struggling to make it, set to a distinctively Knopfleresque classic riff, is available now.

The title track One Deep River reflects Knopfler’s deep affection for the river that runs through his childhood home city Newcastle. “Crossing the Tyne is always on your mind,” he says. “It’s what you were doing when you were leaving as a youngster and that feeling is always the same every time you do it. You’re heading out or you’re coming back, and it just connects with your childhood. The power of it doesn’t go away.”

One Deep River offers an unstoppable flow of future Knopfler classics, with their customarily learned lyrics and refined guitar textures. They draw on a lifetime of genre-crossing ingredients and influences in blues, folk, rock and beyond, and as usual, reveal their charms with unhurried grace and depth.

One Deep River was produced by Knopfler and his longstanding collaborator Guy Fletcher and was recorded at his state of the art British Grove Studios in London. The album will be available on CD, deluxe 2CD, double gatefold vinyl, cassette and a special limited edition box set that will include the album on both vinyl and CD, 5 bonus tracks on CD, 4 exclusive bonus tracks on LP, a litho print of Mark and some of the guitars played on the record, a guitar pick set and tin, and an enamel badge.

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