After months of rumors, Columbia Records has announced that Bob Dylan's new studio album will be released on September 11th, 2012. The set, called Tempest, was produced by Dylan himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. A press release has very little information, but it does say the disc contains 10 original songs. It's unclear what the title of the disc refers to, but it is worth nothing that The Tempest is the title of Shakespeare's final play.
News of Dylan's new disc first hit back in March when Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo (who played on Dylan's 2009 disc Together Through Life) told the Aspen Times he had been recording with Dylan at Jackson Browne's studio in California. "It was a great experience," Hidalgo said. "And different. Each one has been different, all completely different approaches. It's an amazing thing, how he keeps creativity. I don't see how he does it."
Dylan wraps up his European summer tour on July 22nd and heads to North America for a month of dates beginning August 10th in Lloydminster, Alberta. That leg will finish in Hershey, Pennsylvania on September 9th (two days before Tempest hits stores), but there are rumors he will launch another tour in November with special guest Mark Knopfler.
