Bass, drums, yangqin, erhu, vocals and gu-zheng around the songs of The Beatles’ psychedelic period
Jah Wobble will release Mystic Liverpool: The Beatles’ Psychedelic Psongbook on August 14th via Cherry Red Records together with Tian Qiyi, the duo formed by his sons John T Wardle and Charlie Wardle.
Artist: Jah Wobble Tian Qiyi
Release Date: 2026-08-14
Genres: Dub, Psychedelic Rock, World Fusion
Label: Cherry Red Records
Description: Jah Wobble and Tian Qiyi rework The Beatles' psychedelic catalogue in dub and Chinese instrumentation. Out August 14th on Cherry Red Records.
Featured image: © Jon Klein
The name Tian Qiyi comes from the brothers’ Chinese middle names, Tian Qi and Tian Yi, and points to the coordinates the project moves between. Now based in Liverpool, the duo works across British, Chinese, Mongolian and dub material, with traces of post-punk and experimental production methods.
Related article: Guide to Traditional Chinese Musical Instruments
The sonic palette is built on a few specific elements; Jah Wobble’s bass on one side (read our interviews with Jah Wobble, with Jon Klein and about his dub album Vol.1), John T’s drums and Chinese percussion (including the yangqin) on the other, and Charlie’s erhu and vocals at the centre. For “Strawberry Fields Forever” the instrumentation expands further, with Charlie on morin khuur and the brothers’ mother Zi Lan Liao, gu-zheng player and Royal Academy of Music–trained harpist, on gu-zheng. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour” are further touchstones for the project.
Production is shared among the three artists. Recording and mixing took place at Pagoda Studios in Liverpool, which is also where Tian Qiyi currently operates. The location is not incidental; in 1981 Mr K.H. Li (Liao Gui Xiong), Zi Lan’s father, arrived in the city from Guangzhou as Chinese Cultural Officer at the Pagoda and founded the Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra. That ensemble is now directed by Zi Lan herself, who also runs the Pagoda Arts Centre, and both of her sons performed in it from the age of three. The record is dedicated to him; a Beatles fan, he owned every record the group released on vinyl.
The album’s starting point is described directly by Jah Wobble: “The track that flipped it for me as a kid was ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. 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 grew up listening to dub, so Mystic Liverpool was always going to have that sensibility.”
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