Hannah Peel & Beibei Wang – new collaboration

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.

Listen to the launch track, Feed The Fireflies – a joyous piece where an array of percussive sounds, robust rhythms and wordless vocalisations set the tone for this truly unique collaboration

Feed the Fireflies

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 artistic freedom and chemistry of these performances led to The Endless Dance, something of a permanent record of their shared musical landscape, informed by the flora and fauna that emerge and retreat through the seasons. 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, in part due to the genuine curiosity and outside perspectives that each player brought to the sessions.

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 certainly represents a step-change from the duo’s shared classical backgrounds – but their knowledge and training is also the foundation of its freewheeling audacity, giving them the confidence to trust their instincts. In the music’s instrumentation and form, they drew from Wang’s training in both Chinese and Western musical systems. “The Western world has an orchestral system, but in ancient China instruments were categorised by the material they’re made out of: metal, earth, skin, bamboo, very connected to nature,”she explains. “The West has a 12-note system, but Chinese scales are ongoing, so it’s one but also infinite notes. We were influenced by these two sound systems and how the cultures behind them blend together.”

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.”