Bede is the adventurous debut from UK based bassist and composer Michael Dunlop. The album traces a line from Northumbrian folk tunes and Scandinavian influenced jazz to the intimate chemistry of a close-knit small group.

Recorded at The Old Church Studio studios in Thropton, Northumberland, a village with little more than the studio and the pub next door, the album captures the atmosphere of a focused set of sessions where music, and late-night decompression at the bar shaped the sound just as much as any composition.

Named after the Northumbrian monk Bede, the album is rooted in a sense of identity: the landscape and songs of the North East, the simple, sturdy folk melodies Dunlop grew up hearing around Sunderland, and the distinct flavour of Northumbrian tunes with their Scottish and Irish inflections. During lockdown, back at his parents’ home with little to do but play, walk and think, Michael found himself reconnecting with those songs, working through a book of local tunes “made for fun”, learning how they were put together and reimagining them in a contemporary setting.

Out of that period came the desire to focus on his own material and to a project as a band leader after years as an in-demand sideman. Drawn to the spacious, melodic world of “Scandinavian jazz” Dunlop began assembling a repertoire that sat somewhere between that Nordic clarity and the unvarnished directness of folk. At first the charts were detailed and prescriptive, but as the group developed on gigs he started to strip things back: a melody, a few chords, open time, trusting the band to shape the rest.

The ensemble on Bede grew out of that live playing rather than a casting call. Dunlop first crossed paths with saxophonist Albert Hills Wright at the Guildhall School and connected with pianist Finn Carter through mutual friends from that same hub. The initial concept was a drummer-less trio (bass, piano and sax) partly for the practical joy of playing a small band without a kit, partly to push himself into taking more rhythmic responsibility as the sole core of the rhythm section.

Later, hearing how some pieces were crying out for another voice, he invited fellow Guildhall alumnus Dave Adsett to join on drums, and the music naturally fell into two sound worlds: a quartet and a trio.

For the vinyl release, that split becomes architectural: one side quartet, one side trio, two complementary chapters of the same story. The quartet pieces lean into a fuller, more driving energy, while the trio tracks expose the grain of the writing and the interplay between bass, piano and sax, leaving more air around the melodies.

Dunlop produced and arranged the session himself, but with a deliberately light touch, avoiding over-direction in favour of letting the personalities in the band shape the music from the inside.