Bassist and producer Jah Wobble has teamed up with his sons John T Wardle and Charlie Wardle – whoperform together as Tian Qiyi – to release Mystic Liverpool, a deeply personal reimagining of The Beatles’ psychedelic period. The album will be released by Cherry Red Records on 14 August.
Mystic Liverpool draws on Jah Wobble’s signature dub bass; John T’s drums, Chinese percussion and yangqin; and Charlie’s erhu and vocals, with Charlie also playing morin khuur on Strawberry Fields Forever. The boys’ mother Zi Lan Liao – a Royal Academy Of Music trained harpist and director of Pagoda Arts in Liverpool – plays guzheng on the same track. The album was recorded and mixed by John T at Pagoda Studios in Liverpool, where Tian Qiyi is now based, with production from Jah Wobble, John T and Charlie.
The Liverpool connection runs deep through the family itself. Zi Lan’s father, Mr K.H. Li (Liao Gui Xiong) arrived from Guangzhou in 1981 as Chinese Cultural Officer at the Pagoda and went on to establish the Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra – the ensemble Zi Lan now runs and that both her sons grew up
playing in from the age of three. The record is dedicated to Zi Lan’s father: a lifelong Beatles fan, he owned everything they ever released on vinyl.
“The track that flipped it for me as a kid was Strawberry Fields Forever,” says Jah Wobble. “I didn’t have the language for what was going on in that song – I just knew it was more than music. The words you’d reach for are the ones people use about psychedelia – ego dissolution, a sense of unity, cosmic connection. I consider dub music to fit into the psychedelia genre, and John T and Charlie grew up listening to dub, so Mystic Liverpool was always going to have that sensibility.”
The album moves through The Beatles’ psychedelic-era songbook with Chinese instrumentation and dub-inflected mixing, treating the material as the genuinely mystical music it always was rather than simply nostalgic covers. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour are particular
touchstones.
Mystic Liverpool track list:
Tomorrow Never Knows
Strawberry Fields Forever
Within You Without You
I Am The Walrus
Norwegian Wood
Blue Jay Way
The Inner Light
Love You To
Flying
Rain
Pre-order Mystic Liverpool https://www.cherryred.co.uk/jah-wobble-tian-qiyi-mystic-liverpool-the-beatles-psychedelic-psongbook-cd-digipak-edition