Ming & Ping

California musician Bao Vo, who also works as an artist, producer, and brand designer, created Ming & Ping to deliver bright, melodic alternative dance music that blends chiptune-style timbres with darker post-punk textures, drawing from 1980s U.K. acts such as New Order and Pet Shop Boys. The project first surfaced in the early 2000s under the invented identities of identical twin brothers and soon became an early adopter of mobile promotion when it issued the 2009 game Ming & Ping Pong, a Pong variant built around Vo’s own tracks and imagery. Licensing deals placed Ming & Ping songs and instrumentals in commercials and snowboarding films, steadily expanding the audience, while later releases included the 2014 double-EP The Light of Day/The Darkness of Night, a BAO remix of “Heavensent,” and the Blade Runner-inspired EP Los Angeles November 2019. The innerspace EP arrived in 2022.

Vo, born in Vietnam and raised in California, assembled Ming & Ping in San Francisco in 2002; its debut album, mingping.com, appeared on Monotone and Omega Point Records two years later while public sightings remained scarce, fueling persistent speculation that both twins were the same individual. The follow-up, MP2, surfaced in 2005, its cover showing a neon illustration of the pair split front-and-back. Live, Vol. 1, the first title on Vo’s own Bao Vo Creative imprint, documented a 2006 San Francisco performance, coinciding with Vo’s graduation from Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design.

After relocating to Los Angeles, the project gained traction in snowboarding circles through placements in advertising and documentaries, with additional tracks licensed for television and films covering other sports. The 2007 album Causeway Army attracted wide indie-blog attention and preceded the self-titled fourth album Ming & Ping in August 2009. Vo’s Cantonese-opera-themed “Ming & Ping Dynasty” shows later appeared on tours alongside Freezepop, West Indian Girl, and Major Lazer.

Continuing to self-release on Bao Vo Creative, the project issued The Darkness of Night EP in 2012 before pairing it with its counterpart in the 2014 double-EP set. A remix of BAO’s “Heavensent” followed in 2017, and Los Angeles November 2019, again referencing the 1982 film Blade Runner, appeared two years later; its instrumental counterpart arrived in 2020. Four new instrumental pieces formed the innerspace EP released in March 2022.