The Act: DEAN MCMULLEN

The Song: ‘CHRISTINE’

The Format: DIGITAL SINGLE

The Release Date: MAY 27TH 2022

The Digital Link:https://ingrv.es/christine-3zs-b

The Truth: Ex-city of Exeter singing songwriter Dean McMullen releases his fourth ever single, 'Christine', on Friday May 27th 2022. This ties in with the announcement of summertime festival shows and an autumn headline tour, as outlined below. Oh yeah, then there's the release of his debut album called 'Part One' on digital and limited edition coloured vinyl, on September 2nd to deal with.

Like its deceptively delicate predecessors, 'Clouds Hold Up The Sun', 'Migrating Birds' and 'Speechless', 'Christine' is a multi-layered musical extrvaganza lurking within an enigmatic melodic slowglobe. There are flashes of heroic rock guitars, dashes of bar room piano and hints of fragrant female harmonies as the sound gently ebbs and flows with bashful melodies breaking out of the kind of lush musical orchestration last heard on an ELO b-side circa 'Out Of The Blue'.

“This was one of those rare moments songwriters dream of when lyrics just spill out and suddenly you find there's a finished song in front of you," muses the man himself. "Written straight after a slightly awkward, once in a decade Christmas visit, it ponders over absence, lost opportunity and the unimportant things people let get in the way of the important things. Though I haven’t seen her since, here’s Christine.”

If peddling a sound which ambles somewhere between Elliot Smith and Mercury Rev makes him sound like the introspective sort then rest assured that Dean has deftly clocked up enough muscular motorway miles to unnerve the average RAC trooper. Raised on a steady diet of punk rock in Exeter – local heroes The Computers were a special teenage kicking delight – and now based in the Netherlands, his is a tale of incessant gigging as guitarist in oft-loved Muncie Girls interspersed with the odd stint on the slightly more salubrious tour bus circuit as tech for the likes of Tim Burgess and Baxter Dury.

Rather excellently, there is a whole album of this stuff already in the panda canda. Meticulously produced by Gethin Pearson (Kele Bloc Party, ALMA, whenyoung) with Simon Dobson (Bring Me The Horizon, Parallax Orchestra) on the superluscious arrangements it’s a triumphant collection of sweeping melodies and swooping strings – one part pure ‘Snowman & The Snowdog’ escapism, three parts road-tripping reality. It’s a good balance in an off-balance world, and it is the fourth of four releases as part of the National Lottery-funded fierce panda Albums Club following in the footsteps of Chili Palmer, Enjoyable Listens and Scrounge.

Dean McMullen kicked off the year with a solo live show at Pandamonium! at The Victoria in Dalston. Fresh from Sound City in Liverpool, yet more gigs are coming soon, very much like this...

LIVE DATES
June 07 - Brighton - Komedia w/ Tim Burgess
June 11 - Signals Derbyshire w/ The Charlatans, The Cribs
June 13 - Newcastle - Riverside w/ Tim Burgess
June 14 - Glasgow - St Luke's w/ Tim Burgess
June 16 - Leeds - Brudenell Social Club w/ Tim Burgess
June 17 - Birmingham - The Castle & Falcon w/ Tim Burgess
June 24 - Newport - Le Pub w/ Tim Burgess
July 06 - 2000 Trees Festival

September headline tour
06 - Newcastle - Little Buildings
07 - Keighley - The Exchange
08 - London - The Old Blue Last
09 - Hastings - The Piper
10 - Brighton - The Hope
11 - Trowbridge - The Pump
14 - Exeter - Cavern
15 - Portsmouth - TBA
16 - Newport - Le Pub
17 - Bristol - Exchange Basement
18 - Southampton - Suburbia

For full details and tickets visit here:

https://deanmcmullen.com/