“Weltschmerz is this feeling that reality can never live up to the vastness of the mind,” says Xiaoqiao. And with her debut EP, she doesn’t try to reconcile the two. Instead, she lets us drift between them.
Ethereal artist, harpist, and singer-songwriter Xiaoqiao unveils Weltschmerz (out via Bon Music Vision), a four-track dream offering that lives somewhere between longing and transformation. “Some dreams feel urgent, like they arrive with a perfect sort of composition already embedded,” she tells us. “And some stay with me like ghosts, they linger and haunt me quietly until they find their form.”
The EP’s first single, Lethe, takes its name from the Greek river of oblivion, a place where memories dissolve before souls are reborn. In its video, Xiaoqiao moves between waking and dreaming selves, her voice hovering like mist over celestial harp. Throughout the EP, she builds a world of fluttering textures, where shadow selves grieve, myth bleeds into reality, and time folds in on itself.
“Writing is an exorcism into discrete, hidden corners that linger and echo in the dark… lucid, uncanny, and often vulnerable dreams and beautiful nightmares.” If Weltschmerz is a map of the soul, Xiaoqiao is somewhere in an unpinned place — still wandering, still haunted, still dreaming. We speak with the artist to find out more about her inner world, inspiration, and upcoming concert in London — mark your calendars: July 11.
Weltschmerz is a sorrow that feels too vast to be personal, but this EP is deeply intimate. Would you say it's more of a personal apocalypse or a collective prayer?
Writing is a deeply personal process for me. Being exposed, an exorcism into discreet, hidden corners that linger and echo in the dark, lucid, uncanny, and often vulnerable dreams and beautiful nightmares.
Weltschmerz is this feeling that reality can never live up to the vastness of the mind. I think many of us carry those disturbed feelings –grief, discomfort, oblivion– buried beneath the calcified layers of strength, stability or success. It’s vibrational. It lives just beneath the surface, as close as our own skin under all the fabrics we put on. Something that hums quietly in all of us.
Weltschmerz is this feeling that reality can never live up to the vastness of the mind. I think many of us carry those disturbed feelings –grief, discomfort, oblivion– buried beneath the calcified layers of strength, stability or success. It’s vibrational. It lives just beneath the surface, as close as our own skin under all the fabrics we put on. Something that hums quietly in all of us.
Growing up in China and then moving to London, with your heritage, how did those two worlds shape your musical taste and identity? What kind of music did you listen to during your childhood, and how did those influences manifest in your sound today?
I grew up in China and moved to London when I was around twenty to have my postgraduate studies in film. My dad used to play a lot of Faye Wong growing up, and she’s still one of my biggest inspirations today. There’s something otherworldly in the way she uses her voice — so elusive, fluid, and untouchable.
Then I became obsessed with underground experimental bands in China later in my adolescence. I’d always sneak into gigs in Beijing. I guess those sleepless, manic nights took shape in where my fascination with textures and effects began, and why I love sound pedals with my harp now, to distort, dissolve, and build another dream through the instrument.
Cinema is also one of the vastest oceans of my inspiration. I remember when our teacher showed us Maya Deren in our film course, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), and my body couldn’t stop shaking watching it. I was completely speechless and forever changed. It's like you don’t know whether you are in a dream or awake; everything dissolves, nothing feels concrete yet everything is strangely tactile, and I guess that’s sort of the world I’m trying to build now.
Then I became obsessed with underground experimental bands in China later in my adolescence. I’d always sneak into gigs in Beijing. I guess those sleepless, manic nights took shape in where my fascination with textures and effects began, and why I love sound pedals with my harp now, to distort, dissolve, and build another dream through the instrument.
Cinema is also one of the vastest oceans of my inspiration. I remember when our teacher showed us Maya Deren in our film course, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), and my body couldn’t stop shaking watching it. I was completely speechless and forever changed. It's like you don’t know whether you are in a dream or awake; everything dissolves, nothing feels concrete yet everything is strangely tactile, and I guess that’s sort of the world I’m trying to build now.
When I first heard that you were a harpist, I was astonished. It’s such a cool instrument, but it feels so out of reach — so few people play it. When did it first speak to you in that way, and what keeps you coming back to it as a creative tool? How does it influence your music-making?
I remember when I was five, my dad took me to a music shop to buy me a piano, and I saw this grand, surreal, golden pedal harp at the centre of the shop for the first time and I was completely mesmerised by its presence. I also used to make silly lies at school when the teacher asked what instrument everyone plays. I’d say ‘harp!’ even if I didn't. Looking back now, it feels like a quiet manifestation that I envisioned myself in already.
But the true calling moment was after discovering Alice Coltrane. She played the harp like a portal, an ocean of fluid waves that transcend. She inspired me to approach the harp more as a vessel for sonic ritual. Harp naturally sounds like water to me, which is so sacred, like it just synchronises with the ocean of the mind and the streams of consciousness. I run it through electronic effects into a kind of ritual for cosmic dreams.
But the true calling moment was after discovering Alice Coltrane. She played the harp like a portal, an ocean of fluid waves that transcend. She inspired me to approach the harp more as a vessel for sonic ritual. Harp naturally sounds like water to me, which is so sacred, like it just synchronises with the ocean of the mind and the streams of consciousness. I run it through electronic effects into a kind of ritual for cosmic dreams.
Your voice moves like a spirit guide across this EP: from Gregorian chant to whispered dream fragments. Who are you channeling when you sing? Is it you, or something older, deeper, stranger?
When I sing, it kind of feels like I’m letting something pass through, and my body becomes a tunnel. I guess it’s still me, but a version of myself that doesn’t belong to language, time, or identity. It’s the part of me that only speaks in vibration. Sometimes it’s like I’m giving voices to my distant, shadow selves — it can feel eerie and haunted. And sometimes I feel like singing into the Elysium — something higher, lighter, and beyond.
Dreams and mythology are central themes in your lyrics. When you dream yourself, do you often write immediately after waking up, or do you revisit those images later, once you've had time to reflect?
Some dreams feel urgent, like they arrive with a perfect sort of composition and layers already embedded, and I have to write them down before they evaporate. And some stay with me like ghosts, they linger and haunt me quietly until they find their form in a lyric or a harp phrase. I think of dreams as everyone’s own private cinema at night. It's a way we process oblivion, memory, or some most discreet hidden echoes lost in the misty forest of everyday life. Myths to me are like the collective dreams of humanity.
If this EP is a map of your inner world, where would you say you are on that map now — lost, arriving, or somewhere in between?
Somewhere in between, always. Writing to me is a way of speaking to the ghosts that have lingered with me long enough. And I feel I’m only just at the gate of that. It’s like wandering through a vast, misty forest, where you keep encountering shadows and bizarre creatures; curious, confused. It’s disturbing, but also strangely beautiful.
The Lethe music video, directed by Erika Kamano, follows a shadow self lost in the river of oblivion. The visuals seem to echo the EP’s themes of memory, dissolution, and duality. How did you and Erika collaborate to bring these abstract and challenging concepts to life visually?
Lethe came from a very intuitive, emotional place: the feeling of drifting between forgetting and remembering, of dissolving into something you can’t quite name. Erika and I both work in a very intuitive way, and she had this early vision of filming underwater, which felt perfectly aligned with the mythology behind the river of oblivion. I envisioned it as a kind of parallel labyrinth where I meet my lost shadow self through the water. We didn’t want to illustrate the song literally, but to evoke a submerged world that felt surreal, almost like a half-remembered dream. We began with images rather than scripts.
London’s cultural scene is notoriously competitive, yet you’ve carved out a distinct space for yourself, performing at galleries and fashion events. How did you manage to break through in such a diverse environment, and what do you think sets your work apart in this vibrant artistic community?
I move by intuition, something raw, hidden, honest, and vulnerable. And maybe that’s what people resonate with. I still think there’s power in leaving space for mystery and the unknown. It's not always easy today to craft something ritualistic, but I’ve always felt the world as a vibration, and somehow my frequencies have found their way into spaces that echo back.
In line with the previous question, you’ve performed everywhere from art galleries to fashion shows. How does space –sacred, public, intimate– influence how you perform?
Everything speaks in energy and vibrations, and space carries its own waveform. I try to build a world that harmonises with that every time I perform. I love playing in churches, they carry the passage of time in a way that feels physical. I like to think the ghosts who’ve lived there are still listening, sometimes echoing back when I perform. Sometimes I still get intimidated playing in big, public spaces, and I’d imagine myself in the mountains, by a waterfall, a place that brings me back into my own story.
You are playing on the 11th July at your London headline show at Stoke Newington Old Church. What can someone who doesn’t know who you are brace themselves for?
We’re turning the church into an intimate dream sanctuary — a night to be carried through dissolving echoes, lots of drapes, and candlelights. The evening opens with a set by the incredible Ramilda, whose work blends atmospheric dark cello drones with live electronics. I’ll be joined later by a live organist for a special piece, and will perform the Weltschmerz EP alongside some unreleased sonics I’ve been working. There’s also a special cake created by Ecstasy Cookbook to complete the ritual.
