Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy 2014 Led Zeppelin Fans

It's a new year, and with it, Led Zeppelin appear to be dropping new music on their fans in the next 12 months, both collectively and individually.

It's no secret that Jimmy Page has been remastering the entire studio catalogue over the past year.  Rumours of the first album, and possibly the first and second being released within the next month have circulated for a while now. On his website today, Jimmy Page states that the first three albums will be released in 2014.

Each album will be fully remastered, and come with a companion disk of unreleased material, likely studio out-takes more than new songs or live material.

As well, Page has announced via a New Years Day message on his webpage that "I've also been working on some of my own material from the archives that will be unleashed in 2014." Whether he means a remastering or reworking of Outrider, Coverdale/Page or The Firm or brand new material is unclear. While it's possible he means some new material that has been in the vault for a while, the use of the word archives suggests a re-release.

Robert Plant has also been in the studio. It's been well recorded via his twitter account that Plant and his current band, The Sensational Space Shifters have been spending some time this fall in the studio. Plant had recorded almost an albums worth of material with the Space Shifters last year (as well as having done a Band of Joy album with Buddy Miller) but the band developed a harder rock sound through their American tours in 2013, and it's possible they feel last years record is not reflective of where the band is currently. Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters also have a summer tour of Europe planned, with a number of dates unofficially announced. Plant's website only says at this point, "Stay tuned for 2014 tour news."

Meanwhile, a tweet from Audio Virus LAB on December 21st seemed to have gone unnoticed. It announced:
Coming up in 2014 #JohnPaulJones #HelgeSten #MinibusPimps #Deathprod #SusannaSonata pic.twitter.com/1EhVoYKOFB.
The accompanying picture said "Minibus Pimps (John Paul Jones & Helge Sten) Cloud to the Ground. Limited Edition 180 gram vinyl cut from the original 24/96 master."

While this tweet suggests that a Minibus Pimps vinyl album, featuring John Paul Jones will be released in 2014, emails to Jones representatives and to Audio Virus LAB seeking confirmation have gone unanswered.

As well, Jones has been working on a opera for the past couple of years, with a working production date of 2014.  Whether anybody outside of London's opera-going base will see or hear it remains unclear.

And finally, there is Jason Bonham, who, along with Glenn Hughes, has been tweeting messages throughout the fall indicating a new project with the 2 Black Country Communion bandmates and guitarist/keyboardist Andrew Watt. Expect an album from the trio at the least, that won't use the moniker Black Country Communion, as Joe Bonamassa controls the name and has reportedly denied his two former bandmates permission to use it.

Happy 2014 Led Zeppelin fans. The year is young but it might be a good day to get some work in and earn some cash that we're going to need to feed our music habit in 2014.


1 comment:

Bootradr said...

I had thought this was a rumor after hearing in December 2012 that it was suppose to happen in 2013. Now I see it's 2014 this will start. Great news!!!