Jon Hopkins "Music for Psychedelic Therapy" (2021)

Music for Psychedelic Therapy

release date: Nov. 12, 2021

format: digital (9 x File, FLAC) (WIG458D)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,86]

producer: Jon Hopkins

label: Domino - nationality: England, UK

Tracklist: 1. "Welcome" (feat. 7RAYS) - 2. "Tayos Caves, Ecuador i" - 3. "Tayos Caves, Ecuador ii" - 4. "Tayos Caves, Ecuador iii" - 5. "Love Flows Over Us in Prismatic Waves" - 6. "Deep in the Glowing Heart" - 7. "Ascending, Dawn Sky" (feat. 7RAYS) - 8. "Arriving" (feat. 7RAYS) - 9. "Sit Around the Fire" (feat. Ram Dass & East Forest)

[ full album playlist ]

6th studio album by Jon Hopkins following 3½ years after Singularity (May 2018). The album contains nine tracks with a total running time exceeding 63 minutes, and it contains collaborations with 7RAYS, East Forest, and it builds on teachings (and the voice of) the late Ram Dass. Bearing in mind that East Forest is the alias for American electronic ambient artist Trevor Oswalt, who experiments with music for 'inner voyages', and that the late Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert) was an American spiritual teacher and yoga guru, you may get the picture of this album, which also happens to come out after a pandemic and extensive lockdowns.

Where his 2013 breakthrough album showed everyone he was a master of progressive dance-oriented break grooves, his 2018 album proved to be a trip into deep space, this new one is again something entirely different. It's still an electronic release, but other than being instrumentally founded it's another kind of journey we're invited on. Singularity had some ambient feel to it, and that trend goes more full blown with this- and when comparing to his 2013 album, it mostly leaves you with the impression of being made by a different artist. The title Music for Psychedelic Therapy literally says everything you need to know. The music here is meant for what it proclaims. Hopkins has taken his fascination for transcendal meditation and mindfulness into his work in a new way, and the album comes out as an instrument, or a manifestation for inner journeys.

I normally don't fancy ambient or trance that much, and that's to put it nicely, but this deserves anyone's attention. It's hard to pin out highlights as the whole album is like one organism. I can only imagine how powerful it would be submerged into this while meditating. I think, I need to give it a try. The album may be his closest to some of the ideas behind Eno's music, but this is just so much better.

Highly recommended.

[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Pitchfork 7,4 / 10, Mojo, 👍PopMatters 4 / 5, Clash, Exclaim! 4,5 / 5, 👎The Guardian 3 / 5 stars ]

Best of 2018:Jon Hopkins "Singularity" (2018)

Singularity

release date: May 4, 2018

format: digital (9 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,94]

producer: Jon Hopkins

label: Domino - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Singularity" (4,5 / 5) (official shorter video) - 2. "Emerald Rush" - 3. "Neon Pattern Drum" - 4. "Everything Connected" (4 / 5) - 6. "C O S M" - 8. "Luminous Beings"

[ full album ]

5th studio album by Jon Hopkins follows five years after Immunity (Jun. 2013). Five years is quite a long time in the music business, and it hasn't been time wasted for Hopkins, who has been a much sought for producer, co-writer, and composer on various releases. He has worked for Coldplay and toured with the band, and he has made the soundtrack album How I Live Now for the drama film by Kevin Mcdonald.

The album is a different creature than the acclaimed predecessor, and it's actually impressive how varied the album is, when it's still an extremenly coherent whole. Immunity also excelled with progressive compositions and patterns that keep evolving but that's something you dsicover is taken much further here. Stylewise, it's still in the same ballgame where tech house meets downtempo and where the experimental ingredient is ever-present. All that remains, but on top of that all compositions have that ambient quality that proppels you on a forward trip into unknown territory of deep space. Listening to this, have me thinking that it's liekly the closest you can get to have an experience that equels that of tripping from Crystal Meth without actually having taken a drug. Of course you don't hallucinate, you still consciously know where you are but may have an impression of sinking into some kind of transmission and feel an out-of-body-experience. Anyway, I get it.

Singularity is Hopkin's first and only album to top the UK Dance charts and it's also his best charting album on the general albums chart list peaking at number #9, which I fully understand. His 2013 album rightfully provided him international fame and this newest album only underlines his status as one of Britain's most fascinating composers of electronic music. This is simply Hopkins' best album to date!

Highly recommended.

[ 👍Pitchfork 8,3 / 10, Mojo, Q Magazine 4 / 5, Uncut 3,5 / 5, NME 5 / 5, 👎The Guardian 2 / 5 stars ]

[ Jon Hopkins on bandcamp ]

2018 Favourite releases: 1. Jon Hopkins Singularity - 2. The Fratellis In Your Own Sweet Time - 3. Robyn Honey

Jon Hopkins "How I Live Now" (OST) (2013)

How I Live Now (soundtrack)

release date: Nov. 4, 2013

format: digital (16 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,44]

producer: Jon Hopkins

label: Just Music - nationality: England, UK

Soundtrack album by Jon Hopkins to a film by Kevin Mcdonald is Hopkin's second album of the year as it follows the acclaimed fourth album Immunity (Jun. 2013).

The album contains 16 tracks with a total running length of 44 minutes, which implies that the majority of the compositions are relatively short instrumentals. The album feature a few other collaborating artists and it kicks off a bit out of tune with the remainders with an inde rock tune credited Amanda Palmer and performed by Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra. Hopkins cllaborates with Natasha Khan on two tracks and track #9 feature the band Daughters in a remix of their song "Home".

The majority of the compositions are credited Hopkins only and these are nearly all held in an ambient and minimalist tone, which showcase Hopkins as a trained pianist. In that regard, the album stands in its own rights as something quite different when comparing to his discography and especially confronted with his studio album from June.

How I Live Now is a fine and mostly coherent album - especially when subtrackting the two rock tunes by Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra and the Daughters' remix, and I cannot help feeling it falls more in line with soundtracks by Sakamoto and / or Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd.

Jon Hopkins "Immunity" (2013)

Immunity
release date: Jun. 3, 2013
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,82]
producer: Jon Hopkins
label: Domino Records - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "We Disappear" - 2. "Open Eye Signal" - 3. "Breathe This Air" - 4. "Collider" (official shorter video) - 7. "Sun Harmonics" - 8. "Immunity"
[ full album ]

4th studio album by London-based Jon Hopkins (aka Jonathan Julian Hopkins). The album is my first acquaintance with Hopkins, and definitely not my last. Musically, it's a blend of styles of pure electronica. It encompasses house elements commonly known as minimal house - a blend of house and tech house, characterised by simpler compositions with loans from IDM and glitch pop, usually without or with little focus on traditional lyrics and instead making use of vocal arrangements in the shape of musical instrumentation. The album consists of eight distinctive tracks, although, the album really works as one whole - one long progression.
Immunity is widely regarded as Hopkins' breakthrough album and in Britain it was nominated the 2013 Mercury Prize Award (handed James Blake for the album Overgrown).
I really like its organic sound(s), which makes me think of both Icelandic post rockers Sigur Rós and glitch pop band múm fusioned with a neo-classical and progressive rock approach of say Mike Oldfield despite being far from any of those, really.
Recommended.
[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Mojo, Q Magazine, The Observer, NME 4 /5, Pitchfork 8,5 / 10 stars ]

Jon Hopkins "Insides" (2009)

Insides

release date: May 3, 2009

format: digital (10 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,08]

producer: Jon Hopkins

label: Domino - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 2. "Vessel" - 3. "Insides" - 4. "Wire" - 5. "Colour Eye" - 9. "A Drifting Up"

3rd studio album by Jon Hopkins following five years after Contact Note (Aug. 2004) is his first album after signing with Domino Recording Co.

The album also includes the track "Light Through the Veins", which had been issued on the Coldplay album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (Jun. 2008). Hopkins also co-produced the Coldplay song "Life in Technicolor" and from hereon he was an often used co-producer and / or mixer used by the band, who also began touring with Hopkins. Before meeting with Coldplay, Hopkins had made some collaboration works with Brian Eno, who had come heard Contact Note.

Insides is mostly experimental electronica in the styles of IDM, micro and ambient downtempo, and if you happen to be familiar with his acclaimed Immunity from 2013, then this comes out as more of experimental drafts that paved a way to his more original sound later on. The album doesn't appear the same coherent whole you'll find his later albums do. It's more like single tracks pointing in many directions. Some compositions have a synthpop quality that makes you understand the idea of collaborating with Coldplay much more sensible, and others are much more in a classic electronic / Brian Eno territory.

Insides is mostly interesting as Hopkin's formative journey toward more acclaimed works and mostly fails on several parameters, which isn't the same as all bad.