Hannah Peel goes stratospheric, and I'm just tagging along

The cover feature for issue 136 of Electronic Sound Magazine is my interview with Hannah Peel.

I chat to Hannah about her new album The Endless Dancewith percussionist Beibei Wang, her nocturnal Radio 3 show, the emergence of a space-themed ballet, and how 2026 will be a meteoric year. Oh and hiccups. We talk about hiccups.

I last spoke to Hannah nine years ago: we hung out at the glorious BlueDot festival where she was performing alongside a full colliery brass band. My recollection is that it was a sunny day, although that could have been Hannah's disposition.

In the intervening years, Hannah's CV has not only expanded, it has exploded into a colossal supernova of radio presenting, soundtracking for telly, BBC Proms, doing stuff at the Barbican, and even a cosmic-themed ballet. We cover as much of it as we can in the interview.

For one of our chats, we were joined by her album collaborator, Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang. I say 'percussionist' - the term doesn't really do her justice. She creates instruments in the most complicated ways possible: vegetable tom-toms; Coca-cola xylophones; leaky colanders.

"I just bring whatever I have from my pocket and then join Hannah’s party," says Beibei of working with Hannah, and that pretty much sums it up. There's a wild creativity between them, but then a real ease, as if they were destined to make tunes together. Impressive.

Enough gushing. If you like my words, such as "gushing", do pick up a copy of the mag. You can even get a limed-edition accompanying single if you're quick enough. In this issue, you'll also find me banging on about the Eurovision Song Contest. An excerpt:

"This year’s UK entry is Look Mum No Computer, which coincidentally was the slogan of my short-lived IT repair company aimed solely at members of the Icelandic indietronica band Múm."

Yes, I am an idiot.

Shout out too to Mike Lindsay who produced Hannah and Beibei's album. I last spoke to Mike in 2018 about modular basslines, not having rules, and moving to Margate.

Shop for lovely ES magazines here.

Further Fats: 'Scoping out the 2017 BlueDot festival (2017)

Further Fats: No-one wants songs about the moon these days (2017)

30 best electronic music albums of 2021: Blanck Mass, Facta, Hannah Peel & Herrmann Kristoffersen

Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents four more brilliant albums:

Blanck Mass – In Ferneaux (Sacred Bones Records)

When the Guardian reviewed this, they called it "the very definition of niche". I think that's code for "we don't quite get it". This is certainly Benjamin John Power doing something different, as he swaps his flesh-wobbling red-LED maximalism for something more serene. In two long phases, he leads us through sparkling streams of polished pads, through tinkling found sounds, through droning funereal organs, Scanner-style vocal wires. There are relatively few moments – although they are still there – where it feels like he is battering mechanical moles into your brain. Sounds niche. And I approve.

Facta – Blush (Wisdom Teeth) 

How did this drop out of my top ten? For flip's sake. Can someone get admin on the line? Here's a snippet from my review of this folky debut for Electronic Sound magazine. "Facta’s insanely good-natured debut is a woodland meander through placid pads and feet-tickling FM synths... On Deck’s cheery vibraphone recalls 808 State’s rosier moments, or last year’s triumphantly tropical Cape Cira from label partner K-Lone [see 2020's countdown]." Speaking of K-Lone, it does work as a sister album: this Balearic delight is another gleaming triumph for the Wisdom Teeth label. Well done, teeth fairies!

Hannah Peel – Fir Wave (My Own Pleasure)

Hannah Peel is well jammy. For this fourth album, she was given access to the Delia Derbyshire archives. She rebuilt that historic audio into a haunting Mercury Prize-shortlisted tribute to library music and nocturnal chill-out. Cycles of fuzzy synths pay homage to the likes of Global Communication, and the thrilling build on Ecovocative is pure Ulrich Schnauss. All the while, this is uniquely Peel, and you can easily draw a line of heritage to her ace spacy album Mary Casio. I presume she got permission for the Delia samples, and didn't break into the archive like the Pink Panther, the Oceans Eleven fellas or an especially naughty badger.

Herrmann Kristoffersen – Gone Gold (Bytes)

Over to my Electronic Sound writing again for this tribute to the classic Electronic Arts video game Need For Speed. (Yes, really. Apparently the Kristoffersen half of the partnership used to compose music for Nintendo.) "Unsurprisingly for something released on Bytes, named after the legendary Black Dog album, there’s more than a hint of Artificial Intelligence here. The nostalgia works: cue a montage of Playstations, Gameboys and blocky Designers Republic geometrics... There is widescreen emotion on Gone Gold, its wistful IDM washes as filmic as any modern cutscene." Vroom, vroom.

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021. Read it all here.