MICHAEL CHAPMAN

DEAN McPHEE

The Lexington

96 Pentonville Road, Islington N1 9JB

Doors 7pm ~ Ł6 on the door.

Places can be held by emailing info@blastfirstpetite.com

collection before 6.30pm

MICHAEL CHAPMAN website

Yorkshire songwriter and finger-picking guitarist MICHAEL CHAPMAN draws glimmering chords of connection both personal and stylistic between the likes of John Martyn and Roy Harper (associates in the fecund British folk scene of the late 60s) and contemporary players such as Thurston Moore and the late Jack Rose.

Indeed, the seeds for Chapman’s recent (and, remarkably, first ever improvised) album ‘The Resurrection and Revenge of the Clayton Peacock’ were sown in conversation with Moore following a show with Rose in Philidelphia. The title may be derived from the John Fahey track ‘The Death of Clayton Peacock’, but this astonishing record announces a rich stylistic alchemy of Chapman’s sole devising. The driving runs and wood-smoked warmth of the Takoma school are present alongside traces of the slightly sharper glimmer of English finger-picking, but these tropes are dissolved and devoured in an almost shamanistic chase between the reverential and ecstatic musics of multiple traditions, including shredding psych solos, displaced gamelan peals and the Griot click of thumb piano.

Justly lauded by The Wire magazine as one of the top ten albums of 2011, for this very special show to mark the LP reissue of the record Chapman will play 'The Resurrection of Clayton Peacock' (side one of the record), with a band including McPhee and young Manchester guitarist Daniel Land.

“Chapman [sounds] as surprised (and delighted) as the listener to hear the waves of energy he lets loose from his instrument... the iridescence of the playing is dazzling.” (The Wire Magazine)

"Michael Chapman is an expert folk player just as liable to veer off into jazz, progressive, ragtime, hard rock or experimental directions." (Wall Street Journal)

www.blastfirstpetite.com/michael-chapman.html

DEAN McPHEE website

DEAN McPHEE is a Lancastrian finger-picking electric guitarist now based in West Yorkshire. His gorgeously liquid, pure-toned playing is supremely evocative of the small splendours and grand transitions of the natural environment. His magnificent debut album proper ‘Son of the Black Peace’ has cemented the reputation won by debut EP Brown Bear.

“Dean McPhee’s debut conjures pellucid, iridescent worlds with little more than a Fender Telecaster, a tremelo pedal and a litany of liquid runs and baroque, improvised figures”. (MOJO Magazine).

“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)

www.blastfirstpetite.com/dean-mcphee-black-peace.html

This show is presented in partnership with Blast First Petite!, the current label of both artists.