Joe Satriani launches The Elephants of Mars album with epic Sahara single

Guitar wizz Joe Satriani has released a new single, Sahara. It's taken from his upcoming 18th studio album The Elephants of Mars, the follow-up to 2020's Shapeshifting, which will be released on April 8.

The album will be Satriani's first since signing to earMusic, and finds him determined to show that his time away from the road has been used well. “I want to show people that an instrumental guitar album can contain far more creative and entertaining elements than I think people are using right now,” he says.

“Some years ago, we were lucky to be the label chosen by Joe Satriani for the very fortunate Chickenfoot project,” says earMusic General Manager Max Vaccaro. “It was impossible not to notice and admire the dedication, the work ethic, and the monstrous talent in the recording studio and on stage.

“We knew, though, that he had the same ‘home’ for his solo music for decades and that, for him, being signed to a record company meant loyalty and belonging. It is with great joy and sense of responsibility that now, some years later, we welcome Joe for his first solo work with earMusic.

"We thank him for having written and recorded very special music that will make a lot of fans happy, and we like to think this will be the first of many great albums to come."

The album will be available in a number of different formats: a jewel case CD, a limited digipak CD (including 14 images created by Satriani), plus four double vinyl variants: black, orange, purple and pink. Full tracklist below.

The Elephants of Mars tracklist

1. Sahara
2. The Elephants of Mars
3. Faceless
4. Blue Foot Groovy
5. Tension and Release
6. Sailing the Seas of Ganymede
7. Doors of Perception
8. E 104th St NYC
9. Pumpin’
10. Dance of the Spores
11. Night Scene
12. Through a Mother’s Day Darkly
13. 22 Memory Lane
14. Desolatio

Joe Satriani album cover — (Image credit: earMusic)

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.