Mike Mettler

Because of his close association with Yes’ signature sound, guitarist Steve Howe is assumed to have been a member of the British progressive giants from the outset — but he only came aboard with the five-man band’s third studio release, February 1971’s The Yes Album. Though his fretboard predecessor, Peter Banks (who later co-founded the prog-adjacent ’70s outfit Flash), foreshadowed the aural adventurism to come on July 1969’s Yes and July 1970’s Time and a Word, it was The Yes Album that cemented the wide-ranging, time-signature challenging sonic template for one of the most forward-thinking progressive acts of the past six decades.

If anybody has Mark Knopfler’s ear, it’s Guy Fletcher. He’s the legendary British singer/songwriter/guitarist’s longtime go-to production partner, and he’s also the man (or guy) responsible for the stellar Atmos mix of Knopfler’s latest solo album, One Deep River. During a recent Zoom interview across the Pond, music editor Mike Mettler and Fletcher discussed how he convinced Knopfler he had no choice but to release One Deep River in Atmos, which Dire Straits tracks are his favorite Atmos mixes to date, and what Knopfler solo material he’d like to tackle in Atmos next.. . .

Frank Zappa was a master at creating musical Venn diagrams. What do I mean by that? Well, Zappa’s compositional talents stretched well beyond the rock music idiom, so many of his releases would offer a keen intersection of doo-wop, classical orchestration, avant-jazz, progressive jams, country funk, and pure pop sensibilities (for starters). Sometimes he would even incorporate all his artistic powers into all 20-plus minutes of an album side’s lone track.