Awaken the Insects: New music from Hannah Peel & Beibei Wang

The Endless Dance is grounded in the strength of ancient concepts, and comes alive with the joy and freedom of play as together, the artists travel through the 24 solar terms of the Chinese calendar with a cornucopia of sound in tow – synths and prepared piano alongside traditional and unconventional percussion that includes rice bowls and a jawbone.

Both genre-defying, storied artists in their own right, Ivor Award winning and Mercury Prize nominated Northern Irish producer and composer Hannah Peel, and Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang originally met while working on Manchester Collective’s 2023 album NEON, and soon after performed a fully improvised show at Kings Place in London, as part of Peel’s residency. “We wanted to create a different type of world through imagination,” Peel explains.

The album is collaged together from recordings made over five days at legendary rural studio Real World, a setting which aligned with the duo’s inspiration from the natural world. With their intentions set and shared musical language already established, Peel and Wang created sounds without self-consciousness, locking into tones and rhythms that felt fun and energetic. From track to track, The Endless Dance is unpredictable and unexpected.

The sessions were also rooted in the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, which emphasises the importance of harmony and intuition. “We appreciate and value what we’re doing in the moment – this is very Taoism,”says Wang. “We don’t worry about the result, we don’t stress about so much preparation. We don’t resolve the chords; we let them go on and on, letting them flow, and letting nature guide us.”

The duos love of improvisation and connection are evident throughout the album, encouraged by producer Mike Lindsay [LUMP, Tunng, Guy Garvey, Jon Hopkins] who brought a new level of energy and creativity to the record as he was given free rein to try out ideas. “Mike loves elements that are nuanced, like breath or the noises in a room,” says Peel, who highlights Lindsay’s organic sensibility towards the work. “It was important to find a producer who could pull together something human and connected, that you could dance to, or you could put on while traveling to new destinations.” The album also features guest musician Hyelim Kim, who plays the Daegeum [대금 (大笒)], a Korean flute with “colourful overtones on every note”.

The Endless Dance is a major work from two accomplished, singular artists – but it’s also the sound of mutual curiosity and shared fun, or as Wang puts it: “Two women talking in totally different languages that had a wonderful chat.”