Photo by Jose Ramón Caamaño

Dean McPhee plays a Fender Telecaster through a valve amp with percussion and effects, and he is influenced by Dub, Modal Jazz, British Folk, Underground Electronic Music and Psychedelic Rock. A self-taught musician with a fluid, understated technique and an inventive approach to the instrument, his sound continues to evolve from sparse, echo-laden solo guitar music to a heavier, more multi-layered sound with deep bass and hypnotic riffs and loops.

Dean has toured in the UK and Europe, and opened for artists including Thurston Moore, Acid Mothers Temple, Michael Chapman, The Magic Band, Emeralds, Charalambides, Wolf People, Meg Baird and Michael Hurley to name a few. His latest album ‘Astral Gold’, which came out earlier this year, was critically acclaimed by the likes of The Quietus, Uncut Magazine, Aquarium Drunkard, MOJO, Loud and Quiet, KLOF Mag and Brainwashed. Dean is part of the Folklore Tapes collective and helps run the label Hood Faire with Sam McLoughlin and David Chatton Barker.

“At any given time, there are always a handful of visionary guitarists who carve out their own compelling and distinctive niche, as well as many more who exhibit virtuosic technique or write consistently great songs. McPhee’s work checks off all three of those boxes, but his greatest moments reach another plane altogether where it feels like he is channeling something much deeper, more timeless, and almost supernatural” (Brainwashed)

“Dean McPhee stands out as a true one-off in a crowded field” (Loud & Quiet Magazine)

“There’s really no one else who can create (and sustain) the darkly seductive mood that’s embedded within his work” (Aquarium Drunkard)

“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)

“Definitely one of the leading contemporary guitar stylists in the UK, and in the world” (Steve Barker, BBC ‘On the Wire’)