ALBUM REVIEW: Dean McPhee – Northern Earth

Bass Ritual

Bradford-based artist Dean McPhee has released six albums across the last decade-and-a-half, from the treated guitar explorations of Son Of The Black Peace and Fatima’s Hand to the dub-infused experiments of 2024’s Astral Gold.

His new release Northern Earth (again on his own Bass Ritual label) continues the journey he began on Astral Gold, featuring three tracks that set his guitar against a set-up of valve amps, a subwoofer, percussion pedals and an alarmingly packed pedalboard. Recorded live with no overdubs, these three tracks place his intricate, folk-tinged guitar playing in an entirely new context and at times sound like a full space-rock band rather than one man and his tottering pile of kit. Opener Indica Fields perhaps tips the listener off with its title, being a shimmering, hazy affair with a deep bass sound and percussive rimshots. Appleby Fair takes the pulse of Indica Fields and expands it into something almost ritualistic, processional. Long closer Northern Earth sets beautifully treated guitar – all chorus and phase and fractal loops – against some fathoms-deep bass rhythms, sounding at times like an ambient dubstep track, or Gnod at their most fried and bucolic. This is strong medicine, friends.