Jon Hopkins albums
Biggest Influences:
Harold Budd, Popul Vuh, Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin, Tangerine Dream
Best Album:
Immunity
Albums Chronologically:
2013 – 95% - Immunity
2018 – 85% - Singularity
2021 – 60% - Music for Psychedelic Therapy
2024 – 83% - RITUAL
2013
Immunity – 95%
Electronic music is different than other music in that it is programmed, or produced if you will, at the same time that it is made. The sounds are made by a musician for sure, but it is a musician as producer rather than a person coming through after all the music is made and "producing" it. In that way, it is much easier to judge harshly on electronic music as easy to do or as one reviewer for this album had said, "a 15 year old could make this stuff!". But that argument is unfair, and as proved by Jon Hopkins on Immunity, if anything this is type of texture a layering of sounds is often even harder to do then guitar-based music. It is certainly harder to do WELL, and what Immunity proves above all else is that there are still new ways to achieve futuristic sounds in the 21st century after Pioneers like Klaus Schulze, Brian Eno, Harrold Budd have all done so much.
The songs are but together in snippets and glitches that constantly overlap one another, as what Jon Hopkins creates here is a kind of music that probably could not exist without computers and therefor usually has an ‘inhuman’ sound. But again, it is the sound of the future and sometimes magic happens. "Breathe this Air" and "Collider" literally sound alive, like robots have turned into people! “We Disappear” is humanity being phased out, and the robots taking over our lives in every aspect; so much is given thoughts and motions in what is all instrumental music. “Open Eye Signal” has a more typical electronic pulse to it but a lot happens in the song, sort of like a rocket taking flight through different galaxies and tones shift and musical changes happen.
The 12 minute "Sun harmonics" is like the dawn of a new era, where music is pulsated to a beat and then it trips over itself but keeps falling down the hill. “Abandon Window” is his version of a ballad, or the majestic great absence in outer space or inside our souls. “Form by Firelight” is the most abstract piece, but one of the best, as if new songs are being born within and melodies fight for our attention. The way Jon Hopkins makes old school techno and intelligent dance music merge and music come alive is truly remarkable as closing track “Immunity” sums everything up and ends up being the main thing one remembers after hearing the album; It exists as a hymn to the universe itself but also a slow dragging beat underlying it like scraping tin on a hardwood floor as if the struggle of communication has come to life somehow. The insides of machines have found their voice with this album, and it is one that deserves to be heard.
Immunity is an album that keeps electronic music relevant and also pushes it far into the future, and Hopkins is going to affect the soundtrack of our lives for the foreseeable timeline.
Best Tracks: Immunity, Collider, We Disappear
2018
Singularity – 85%
Five years after one of the masterpieces of electronic music in Immunity (2013), Hopkins returns with a work that is a bit more ‘symphonic in nature. Or is that- ‘symphonic with nature’? I guess it’s both, as opening title track “Singularity” shows Hopkins to use keyboards and a stringed quartet in unison to make music that reaches the heart of what makes us human and seems to beat with the soul of the earth. “Everything is Connected” continues this trend, thought it weaves together many ideas at once throughout is ten and half minute running course, from tribal early humanity style beats to ethereal space music. “Emerald Rush” does what Hopkins does better than almost anyone in the 2010’s besides Andy Stott and has two imposing beats sort of looping over each other playing at the same time but somehow crafting a memorable melodic IDM song. Summing up great music on side one of the album is “Feel First Life”, the most ambient piece so far with a choir of angelic voices soothing all the pain (it evokes the Passion (1989) soundtrack by Peter Gabriel at points).
“Neon Pattern Drum” and COSM” are songs that reach for more abstract and less rhythm, still entertaining through textural work that slowly enraptures you. At nearly twelve minutes, “Luminous Beings” is one of Hopkins most ambitious and lovely sound paintings, reflecting the title of the song and carving out a new alien language among synthesizer tones. Eventually, it runs through all the moving and shaking that Hopkins usually brings to a nice climax, always soothing and calming after the disjointed mess. The first half of the album is quit e bit more stunning than the last half, as “Echo Dissolve” and piano ballad “Recovery” could be considered weaker tracks, but even so the whole album seems of a piece of a work of art and it is an expansive whole to be listened to over and over again by a gifted musician. Hopkins has few equals in the field of IDM.
Best Songs: Emerald Rush, Feel First Life, Luminous Bridge
2021
Music for Psychedelic Therapy - 60%
Veryyyy ambient, and not at all as revolutionary as his earlier work, this album seems to be reaching for what the title says and is more therapeutic in nature. A huge drop in quality from his last couple of works, and only “Deep in the Glowing Heart” holds its own and that song would have been enough “Tayos Caves Ecador 3” and with the first song “Welcome” as an EP for what he had to say here (this album is far too long at 63 minutes). It may work as a sleeping aid on YouTube better than a piece of music, with hardly any drums or beats to speak of, Hopkins gets too lost in abstraction.
Best Songs: Deep in the Glowing Heart, Welcome
2024
Ritual - 83%
The modern master of soundscapes and mood pieces, any new release by Jon Hopkins is a treat. While his last couple of albums lacked some cohesion, this one comes as close to anything as a full length 42-minute song with sections/movements as he has ever done. Everything is dreamy and everything is of another world. Each track is a ‘part’ one through eight, and each song ranges from three to almost eight minutes in length. Some songs are mere sound effects, the whispers of opener “Altar” or percussive beats and ambient space noise like “The Veil”. The ones that stand out though: the lengthy and operatic journey in “Palace/Illusion”, the verbose bass lines of “Evocation” culminating in the climax of “Solar Goddess Return” with its female warbling and repetition make a new kind of atmospheric electronic rock music. This is more than ever about going on an adventure, ending up in a Heaven of sorts on closer “Nothing is Lost”.
It is interesting, to see where Hopkins came from, as his music was always instrumental but more about a kind of scientific dissection of normal phrases and patterns, somehow in synch with a beat but always sort of off, a true disciple of greats from the 1990’s like Aphex Twin or Amon Tobin but an evolution of Electronic music nonetheless. With this album, he approaches Ambient and New Age genres but again…..with his own unique imprint. Like the ‘Space Baby’ at the end of 2001 A Space Odyssey, he is evolving into something unknown.
Best Songs: Solar Goddess Return, Palace Illusion, Nothing is Lost