ALCHEMY
 
Artist Dire Straits
Release date 2005
Recording Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK, 23rd July 1983
Format 2CD + DVD
Label -
Cat.no. DSAL8692 & DSAL8693 & DSDV8695
Tracks CD 1
  1. Once upon a time in the west
  2. Expresso love
  3. Romeo and juliet
  4. Love over gold
  5. Private investigations
  6. Sultans of swing
Tracks CD 2
  1. Two young lovers
  2. Tunnel of love
  3. Telegraph road
  4. Solid rock
  5. Going home
DVD
  1. Intro... Saturday night at the movies
  2. Once upon a time in the west
  3. Expresso love
  4. Romeo and juliet
  5. Private investigations
  6. Sultans of swing
  7. Two young lovers
  8. Tunnel of love
  9. Telegraph road
  10. Solid rock
  11. Going home
Front & back cover               
Inside          
CD´s         
DVD    
Additional comments Counterfeit edition of Alchemy. They made the CD's exactly look like the official remastered Vertigo release. The DVD is obvious a fake release as Alchemy was never released on DVD before until the official release from May 2010. The fold out digipack and artwork however looks great! The back cover contains an error though: for the DVD it mentions that Love over gold is played after Solid rock while Love over gold is not on the DVD at all.  

The cover of the album is an adaptation of 'Alchemy - 1974', painted over a two-year period (1972-1973) by the late Australian artist and personal friend of Mark Knopfler, Brett Whiteley, who died on 15th June 1992. The painting is actually a self-portrait and consists of a series of large separate panels which, when fully displayed, extend around several walls of a studio. The vertical lines separating the frames can be seen on the album cover. There are many panels to the work and most are not seen here. The adaptation includes additional artwork and photographs of the band and some collage like a guitar with lips held by a hand. One prevalent feature in Brett Whiteley's work are arrows going in opposite directions, they feature in various paintings he has done and presumably this is where the four arrows you see on the album cover originate. Apparently Mark Knopfler was an admirer of Whiteley's work. In an interview on the Australian TV programme '60 Minutes' he said he was 'saddened' to hear of his death.