Tickets: £22.50

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Multiple Brit & Grammy award winner John Illsley will launch his new album ‘Testing The Water’ at Camden’s Jazz Café on Thursday 19th June. The former Dire Straits bass player and his band will perform a career-spanning set including songs from ‘Testing The Waters’ which is scheduled for release June 16th.

“We will be playing new songs from the Testing The Water album and some from the Streets of Heaven album plus some Dire Straits classics like Money for Nothing, Sultans, Brothers in Arms and Romeo and Juliet.” John Illsley

John recently performed a small gig for the Anthony Noel charity at his New Forest pub leading Get Ready To Rock to write: “The opening ‘Walk of Life’ and the heartfelt ‘Romeo & are obvious crowd pleasers, but his own songs don’t sound out of place for a moment. Illsley is a thoughtful lyricist, an emotive singer and a fine harmony singer, and it is the latter quality that infuses the evening with a magical strand of continuity.…the lasting memory of the evening belongs to his new material, which given the prolonged absence of Dire Straits, offers existing fans a significant re-connect with deeply felt narratives played out over a compelling musical landscape of rock, folk, country and Americana.”

‘Testing The Water’ is a welcome return to the recording studio for John whose last album ‘Streets Of Heaven’ was released in 2010. “I was missing being in the studio and playing music seriously. This record was an important one for me to make.” Recorded and produced with Guy Fletcher at A-Bay Studios and British Grove, ‘Testing The Water’ sees the “engine room of Dire Straits” in fine form.

“One can only make a record when it feels right and for me the time was right.” John Illsley

From the opening riff of the first single, ‘When God Made Time’, John’s classic sound is unmistakeable. As the man who was a significant element in the pace and feel of Dire Straits’ music from the outset, this familiarity is not surprising "that's not me being influenced by the band, that's just the way I've always played and it continues in my own work" he reflects. Written over the last three years these songs are deeply personal narratives, “the last few years have been so turbulent politically, militarily and personally and I wanted to try and create some songs that reflected these strange times and perhaps were worthy of sharing with others.”

Single ‘When God Made Time’ is released on May 26th whilst the album ‘Testing The Water’ is release June 16th 2014 on Creek Records, distributed by Absolute via Universal.

John Illsley will return this autumn with a run of UK dates kicking off on September 24th at Milton Keynes and closing on the 12th of October in Horsham.

For further information please contact Republic Media info@republicmedia.net 020 3213 0135