"breathe this air" is better w/o purity ring... or maybe i was just too used to the album version
― dyl, Monday, 2 September 2013 20:34 (ten years ago) link
That track was my favourite off the album, and the fact that Purity Ring picked it out as well just made it all the more perfect. I'm a goner for Megan James vocals on anything, tho.
― Mercer Finn, Tuesday, 3 September 2013 20:42 (ten years ago) link
what an incredibly boring album this is. and yes it is literally a wallpaper version of music people were doing eight years ago. gtfo with being excited about it, mercury judgezzzz
― lex pretend, Thursday, 12 September 2013 12:39 (ten years ago) link
otoh the mercury has brought holden's album to my attention and that's loads better than i expected
― lex pretend, Thursday, 12 September 2013 12:40 (ten years ago) link
i have only heard one track from the holden album and didn't really like it at all (and also didn't get why it's been such a constant comparison pt to the hopkins one). maybe i should listen to it in full? meanwhile i really love the hopkins album *shrug*
― dyl, Thursday, 12 September 2013 16:31 (ten years ago) link
On meeting him at the Mercury launch last night I was surprised to discover Hopkins looks like a model. Had imagined him as a beard and cardie type.
― Wantaway Striker (ithappens), Thursday, 12 September 2013 16:39 (ten years ago) link
ha. i dunno, he strikes me more as a handsome-for-a-nerd type, in the brian cox mould.
― Waluigi Nono (Merdeyeux), Thursday, 12 September 2013 16:51 (ten years ago) link
sort of Brian cox meets jonny greenwood
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Thursday, 12 September 2013 16:53 (ten years ago) link
I have to confess, I'd happily condemn Hopkins 'n' Creosote to a life time of making versions/continuations of "Diamond Mine" ...
Likewise.
This is an excellent album, gets very absorbing very quickly.
― hyggeligt, Thursday, 12 September 2013 18:27 (ten years ago) link
They did a song called Circle My Demise a few years ago, it's really gorgeous.
― Chris, Thursday, 12 September 2013 23:34 (ten years ago) link
I like the JH album, though not to the point of vigorously defending it
― going (to) hell for pleather (seandalai), Friday, 13 September 2013 02:04 (ten years ago) link
I like Immunity well enough although I find I'm hitting his FACT mix more often. I think Hopkins' greatest strength lies in his reassembling of existing material.
http://www.factmag.com/2013/06/24/fact-mix-388-jon-hopkins
― doug watson, Friday, 13 September 2013 11:47 (ten years ago) link
Essential Mix from November last year (without interruptions):
https://soundcloud.com/jonhopkins/essential-mix-221114
And news of a Late Night Tales mix:
http://www.clashmusic.com/news/jon-hopkins-to-steer-late-night-tales-mix
― djh, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:49 (nine years ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=22&v=t-w-XSbVDsI
― djh, Wednesday, 25 April 2018 20:22 (six years ago) link
with this and the last track he premiered i feel like he might be trying to wring too much out of a narrow range of ideas lately
― dyl, Thursday, 26 April 2018 04:27 (six years ago) link
or perhaps he was always this limited and i just failed to notice until now
― dyl, Thursday, 26 April 2018 04:28 (six years ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/an-electronic-soundtrack-for-spiritual-awakening
New Yorker writer Kelefa Sanneh loves Jon Hopkins:
Hopkins is now thirty-eight, and one of the most celebrated electronic musicians of his generation. He has a paradoxical ability to make obsessively engineered tracks that sound friendly and generous; his sensibility is openhearted and sometimes sentimental—an approach that can make him seem like an outlier in the world of electronic music. ...Next month, he will release “Singularity,” ending a quiet but dramatic period in his life, during which he recovered from the rigors of touring by subjecting his body to other kinds of stress: desert treks, controlled breathing, freezing baths. Apparently, these exertions had an effect, because the new album is both the gentlest and the most epic of Hopkins’s career.
“Singularity” is an hour-long ode to spiritual transcendence that also resembles pleasant background noise—at least, it does at first.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 26 April 2018 16:18 (six years ago) link
and the most epic of Hopkins’s career.
Certainly does have a ton of huge buildup tracks on it. And it's a nice record, too.
― octobeard, Wednesday, 2 May 2018 08:03 (six years ago) link
one of the most celebrated electronic musicians of his generation
huh did not realise this
― just sayin, Wednesday, 2 May 2018 23:56 (six years ago) link
Don’t think that’s overstating things, he’s a pretty high profile guy. I mean not David Guetta fame or anything but similar to a guy like Nils Frahm.
― Siegbran, Thursday, 3 May 2018 06:31 (six years ago) link
Celebrated by those already in the know...I had barely heard of the guy
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 3 May 2018 13:20 (six years ago) link
the new record is like immunity pt 2 (saying that in the most positive way possible)
great interview w him here - https://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/7xdyzd/jon-hopkins-wants-to-take-you-on-a-blissed-out-trip
― Thee Macallan 18 Year, Friday, 4 May 2018 20:40 (six years ago) link
Enjoyed the RA feature on his gear & process
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 4 May 2018 20:44 (six years ago) link
Yeah
― Ross, Thursday, 10 May 2018 20:11 (five years ago) link
Man this album is emotionally resonant
― Ross, Thursday, 10 May 2018 20:12 (five years ago) link
Damn
― Free-jazz baser (Ross), Sunday, 13 May 2018 04:58 (five years ago) link
Saw most of his set last night, was pretty cool!
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 13 September 2018 13:46 (five years ago) link
Seeing him in a week. Anything notable? Should be fun seeing him as a headliner - last time I saw him he opened for Royksopp if I remember right
― octobeard, Thursday, 13 September 2018 16:34 (five years ago) link
Hmm, notable? I guess it was more aggressive than what I was expecting, and he was a lot more active. Setting tempos and triggering in real time, that sort of thing. He was very busy. Daniel Avery's techno-heavy DJ set beforehand was pretty great, too.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 13 September 2018 18:02 (five years ago) link
new album is more aggressive than the last one too, or are you meaning even more than that
― j., Thursday, 13 September 2018 18:32 (five years ago) link
hopkins is a lot like clark too it seems..
― Ross, Thursday, 13 September 2018 18:47 (five years ago) link
xpost Hmm, he did start with pretty much the first few tracks from the new album, I think. But something about it seemed much more in your face, made for dancing and not introspection. Maybe it was simply a matter of volume!
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 13 September 2018 20:14 (five years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G4kCi_ldr8
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Sunday, 5 September 2021 16:42 (two years ago) link
New album Music for Psychedelic Therapy' out today.
I haven't been able to test out its suitability for ketamine or other nostrums.
To ensure the album was fit for purpose, Hopkins listened back to it several times after taking ketamine, a dissociative anaesthetic sometimes used in psychedelic therapy. “Ketamine, for me, has always had an extraordinary synergy with music, particularly electronic and devotional music,” he says. “Maybe three months before mastering, when the album was starting to form as a complete thing, I would have a ketamine session and just lie there and return with notes on what was good and what was not good. It was my mind exploring tool. I almost called the album ‘Music for Ketamine Therapy’, which would be getting ridiculously niche, but for me that’s what it’s best suited for.”When you do a deep listen, on a medicine, with a reasonable volume, it becomes a very emotionally intense thing,” says Hopkins. “But I think even a sober listener, listening at a decent volume, doing nothing else, will be taken somewhere.” He recommends listening to the album in a single sitting, lying down in the dark. “It asks something different of the listener because of the time scale it operates over,” he says. “Longform music is an incredible thing, and I like the idea of reacting to decreasing attention spans by making things that ask a little bit more, but hopefully give more as well.”However listeners end up experiencing this album, Hopkins believes further research into the potential of psychedelic therapy can only benefit humanity as a species – particularly if it encourages us all to listen a little harder to what those plants are trying to tell us. “I see it as a protection method the Earth has got,” he says. “You can eat a psilocybin mushroom from the ground, and it teaches you a lesson about the importance of the ecosystem that generated that very mushroom. The message is right there, so it’s kind of impossible to ignore.”
When you do a deep listen, on a medicine, with a reasonable volume, it becomes a very emotionally intense thing,” says Hopkins. “But I think even a sober listener, listening at a decent volume, doing nothing else, will be taken somewhere.” He recommends listening to the album in a single sitting, lying down in the dark. “It asks something different of the listener because of the time scale it operates over,” he says. “Longform music is an incredible thing, and I like the idea of reacting to decreasing attention spans by making things that ask a little bit more, but hopefully give more as well.”
However listeners end up experiencing this album, Hopkins believes further research into the potential of psychedelic therapy can only benefit humanity as a species – particularly if it encourages us all to listen a little harder to what those plants are trying to tell us. “I see it as a protection method the Earth has got,” he says. “You can eat a psilocybin mushroom from the ground, and it teaches you a lesson about the importance of the ecosystem that generated that very mushroom. The message is right there, so it’s kind of impossible to ignore.”
― Luna Schlosser, Friday, 12 November 2021 14:01 (two years ago) link
I'm going to listen to it a bit more before commenting, but so far I like the combination of drone-y sections with nature sounds and gentle but insistent pulsing electronic elements.
― Luna Schlosser, Friday, 12 November 2021 14:11 (two years ago) link
I'm kind of confused as to what Hopkins is or is trying to be. On one hand he writes intimate songs with King Creosote but on the other dancey, processed head-bobby electronica for the kids? Then he plays spacey piano soundtrack-y stuff with nature sound ambient stuff? I appreciate that he has diverse interests, but other than the odd moment or melody, I have a hard time finding his center and a lot of it kind of washes over me.
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, 12 November 2021 14:28 (two years ago) link
I’d guess this is more of a personal project and one-off within his own work.
― Luna Schlosser, Friday, 12 November 2021 14:48 (two years ago) link
I don't know, to me he mostly stays in the triangle between ambient/soundtrack, IDM and minimal house/techno, like a lot of other producers. The King Creosote record I thought was mostly a production job?
I think Hopkins consistently produces good stuff but I also find it hard to get super excited about him.
― Siegbran, Friday, 12 November 2021 15:01 (two years ago) link
― Siegbran
This is where I am with him. He’s very capable as a producer and composer but I can’t seem to click with his thing.
Started hearing this new one yesterday and got super bored, skipped ahead and it was more of the same thing… I guess it serves a very specific purpose.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 12 November 2021 16:14 (two years ago) link
the correct soundtrack for ketamine "therapy" is mid-90s happy hardcore compilation CDs at mind melting volume, i like this dude's big budget new age-tronica but cmon
― adam, Friday, 12 November 2021 16:29 (two years ago) link
I've no experience of ketamine at all, but I was intrigued by an episode in the last series of High Maintenance where someone uses/abuses a ketamine nasal spray.- which is apparently a real treatment for depression. That looked like it could be fun to do with this soundtrack.
― Luna Schlosser, Friday, 12 November 2021 16:46 (two years ago) link
mushrooms are not plants, jesus christ
― the late great, Friday, 12 November 2021 19:04 (two years ago) link
closer to getting high from eating the eye boogers of a rotting hyena
― the late great, Friday, 12 November 2021 19:06 (two years ago) link
nature, ecology and psychedelic experience are both super dope but not taking advice from anybody who can’t tell the six kingdoms apart lol
― the late great, Friday, 12 November 2021 19:10 (two years ago) link
Ram Dass track was suprisingly beautiful. Not sure if it really benefits from repeat listens but as a one off I was surprised by how well it did. Then again, one of my favourite BOC tracks has that cheesy porn monologue in it so maybe this will continue to hold up as well?
― hrep (H.P), Saturday, 29 January 2022 05:35 (two years ago) link
Belatedly reporting back that the only part I like of this is the 'excerpt' - I have difficulty finding any interest in the rest of it.
I'm sure he's super sincere, but this is so credulous:
“You can eat a psilocybin mushroom from the ground, and it teaches you a lesson about the importance of the ecosystem that generated that very mushroom. The message is right there, so it’s kind of impossible to ignore.”
Err.. do you have a theory about Hemlock, or even Tobacco?
― Luna Schlosser, Saturday, 19 February 2022 13:18 (two years ago) link
Hemlock is poisonous in toto, and is mostly used for pulpwood.
Tobacco must be cured before consumption.
What he's saying is a bit hippie-ish, yes, but it's also true to a certain extent-- a tiny mushroom can make you see God.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Saturday, 19 February 2022 14:08 (two years ago) link