Dean McPhee

West Yorkshire based Dean McPhee has been captivating audiences with his fluid and hypnotic solo electric guitar music since 2007. He plays a Fender Telecaster through a valve amp and effects pedals, combining clean, chiming melodic lines with deep layers of decaying delay and cavernous echo. Self-taught and a natural improviser, he has developed a unique style of playing which draws together influences from British Folk, Dub, Kosmische, Post Rock, Mali Blues and Modal Jazz into an instantly recognisable sound that is completely his own. Respected dub connoisseur, “On the Wire” presenter and champion of unusual and esoteric music Steve Barker recently described Dean as being “definitely one of the leading contemporary guitar stylists in the UK, and in the world” and his latest LP “Fatima’s Hand” was number 4 in MOJO Magazine’s top 10 underground albums of 2015. His releases on the Blast First Petite, Hood Faire and World in Winter labels have been critically acclaimed by The Wire Magazine, Uncut Magazine, Record Collector Magazine, Music OMH, Dusted Magazine, Brainwashed, The Out Door, Drowned in Sound and The Quietus amongst others.

In 2012 Dean was invited by Michael Chapman to take part in a live improvised interpretation of his experimental LP “The Resurrection and Revenge of the Clayton Peacock” (Ecstatic Peace) at The Lexington in London. In 2013 he joined Chris Hladowski and Sufi musicians Hameed Brothers Qawaal for a collaborative performance in Bradford and also played live with video feedback artist Barry Hale, both as part of Recon Festival. He has supported artists/bands such as Thurston Moore (as UK tour support), Acid Mothers Temple, Wolf People, James Blackshaw, Emeralds, Josh T Pearson, The Magic Band, Sharon Van Etten, Michael Hurley, Josephine Foster, Meg Baird, Bohren and der Club of Gore and Charalambides. Dean recently toured in The Netherlands and Belgium with Hood Faire label mate David Chatton-Barker (Folklore Tapes) and in France with fellow solo guitarist Seabuckthorn where they played a sold-out apartment show in Paris for La Chaise (les tabourets). He is currently working on a new album which uses a kick drum pedal to introduce a pulsing, percussive undercurrent to his most recent compositions, as well as a split 7″ with Seabuckthorn which will be released later this year.

Selected press quotes

“Understated bass patterns support melodic themes recalling the folk tunes interpreted by Fahey and Jansch, but without the constricted, overly careful feel that disciples of those acoustic players often end up with…set within an electric ancestry that includes Michael Karoli’s solos in Can, the hymnal rock of Popol Vuh’s Daniel Fichelscher and the sonic spaciousness of dub, as well as the emotional punch of John Martyn’s dawn-lit Echoplex epic, ‘Small Hours’.” (The Quietus)

“Sublime solo electric guitar reveries that sound like absolutely no one else…Fatima’s Hand is essentially Dean McPhee at his most defiantly “Dean McPhee”: pure, unhurried, exotic, and artfully tinged with a touch of unreality. At its best, this album is basically an imaginary opium den for the ears, as Eastern modalities gently unfold in a soft-focus haze and time loses all meaning…Dean’s greatest artistry lies in how seemingly effortless, egoless, and natural these five pieces feel, like they just flowed out of his guitar without any intended structure or artifice”. (Brainwashed)

“Whilst less well known than the likes of (Richard) Skelton, Bradford’s Dean McPhee is equally deserving of recognition as an established figure in the UK ambient/drone scene. The guitarist’s new album Fatima’s Hand is one of his finest to date….Rolling landscapes and smoke-blackened skies are transformed into sights of beauty over the course of five fantastically well-constructed pieces.” (Articulate Silence, Ambient Sounds column, Drowned in Sound)

“The hallmark of McPhee’s style is a picked bassline and free-ranging variations on melodic ideas via a mesmerising progression of harmonics, cleanly picked notes, full chords and string-bending arab-esques… Son of the Black Peace is a 37 minute gem of an album” (The Wire Magazine)

“The follow-up to English guitarist Dean McPhee’s 2010 Brown Bear EP, Son of the Black Peace is as devastatingly beautiful as Michael Chapman’s Fully Qualified Survivor, the best of John Fahey, John Martyn, and the most meditative lines Richard Thompson has ever played”. (Popmatters)