Such is the long shadow of Covid that this is effectively the live launch of Hannah Peel’s acclaimed album Fir Wave, even if it comes nearly two years after it was released, and long after it was shortlisted for the 2021 Mercury prize. She explains tonight that it wasn’t even meant to be a proper LP: she was initially asked to remix a 1972 KPM album of library music called Electrosonic, created by BBC Radiophonic Workshop luminaries, but Peel became so immersed in the project that she ended up creating seven completely new pieces of music.
Many of the sounds she works with tonight are samples from that 1972 album – unique analogue synth voicings that were programmed by the likes of Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson and Don Harper – all played live by Peel and fellow synth wizard Hazel Mills. Peel is an acclaimed string arranger for the likes of Paul Weller, John Foxx and Erland Cooper (all of whom are in the audience tonight), and she occasionally switches to violin and piano, but the emphasis tonight is on the electronic.
