When the student is ready, Jon Hopkins will appear
Before we commence the journey into the veritable sonic palace that Jon Hopkins has masterfully crafted with his new album RITUAL, we should first drift back in time to find the key moments that have directly led to this piece, listening carefully, you can hear the collective reverberations of these episodes. What Jon has effectively done is captured events, happenings, moments, places, emotions, colours and reconstructed them by sculpting and conducting the movement of air. It is something quite phenomenal.
An alchemic manipulation of sensations and experiences into audio, in a deftly woven invisible space that he has carved, where it feels, sounds like the tenderly grasped hand of a new born, bringing you on a journey, to the soaring heights of Neil Armstrong on his way to meet God, and to the luxurious depths of what the character Jacques saw at the bottom of the ocean in Luc Besson’s The Big Blue (1988), whilst ultimately landing with the grace of purring cat.
Everything has led to RITUAL.
With the playful, curious, inquisitive mind of a four year old, a young Jon was visiting a friend’s house, who happened to have a piano. Instinctively drawn to this giant object, he wandered over and pressed a single key. The felt hammer hit the wire, sparking a note, and resonance not only changed his life forever, but the reverb has followed him throughout his entire life, capturing that moment, morphing sound, wonder, awe, and those emotions ever since. But most importantly, his desire to share it with everyone else.
His reverence for the piano was apparent, his parents sending him to lessons from the age of seven. He was studying in the Royal College of Music by 12. It was extremely clear he had found his medium of expression and expanded this through buying his first synth by 15, and started composing his own pieces via this new technology.
Later, as a highly competent pianist, he was able to work as a session musician and tour with Imogen Heap, supporting his ability to work on his debut album Opalescent (1999), earning wide and welcome exposure in his early twenties. His follow up Contact Note (2004) didn’t grasp the same traction, and while reconsidering what direction to go, landed an opportunity to work with, and be mentored by artist, producer and basically grand master wizard of sound Brian Eno, who was working on a myriad of projects including his own work, and ultimately Coldplay.
Brian’s unique perspective on the sense of trust, discovery, experimentation, freedom and play in the creative process further fanned the spark in Jon. Playing music created by others wasn’t his truth, and working with all these creatives who absolutely believed in the integrity of creativity, made this all the more clear.
The spark was now a raging fire of desire to discover, study, learn and build. Producing albums for multiple artists only added fuel, wisdom, honesty and integrity to his objectives. It also enabled the ability to nurture and develop his awareness of anything and everything, funnelling all this knowledge and experimentation of meditation, psychedelics, therapy and life experiences, into new works, trying them out in DJ sets, producing and collaborating with an ever increasing library of equally creative musicians and artists.
His third album Insides continued the continuously expanding, expansive cinematic and emotionally rooted techno soundscapes that he was known and deeply admired for, ever honing his craftsmanship, exploration and ability to guide emotive responses to sound. The seamless melding of life via field recordings, technology, musicianship and collaboration, imbuing almost synaesthesia reactions, giving the ability to trigger colours in the mind of the listener. A skill recognised by directors who increasingly asked him to make scores for their films, in particular Monsters (2010) directed by Gareth Edwards.
Immunity arrived in 2013 and Singularity in 2018, with each exploration deftly showing a ceaseless expansion of ability, mountainous sound, nuance and emotional impact.
It was also in 2018 that presented another opportunity that would significantly change the direction Jon may have been going in. Having been invited by his friend Eileen Hall (artist/curator) to visit Ecuador’s Tayos Caves. Spending a few days and nights inside 60 metre deep caverns offered a seemingly unearthly experience, where an expedition team of experts from different fields focused on uniting conservation, art, music, neuroscience, photography and architecture.
By all accounts a pivotal moment, as a musician and personally, it led to the creation of the track Tayos Caves, then Sit Around the Fire, leading ultimately to the album Music For Psychedelic Therapy (2018).
Doing exactly what it says on the tin, Jon utilised his life experience, experimenting with psychedelics, meditation and technical knowledge thus far, and refocused it with the objective of bringing healing properties to the listener. This was inspired by his awareness of the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy and research done by neuroscientist Mendel Kaelen at Imperial College London, who also happened to be part of the Tayos team. Jon would work with Mendel on Wavepaths, an audio tool that therapists use whilst in sessions with clients, guiding them with sound and psychedelics in the treatment of depression, PTSD and addictions.
The album is designed as a journey for the listener, morphing field recordings of nature, vast levels of sound manipulation and again, an even more expansive soundscape, that ultimately has an organic, warm embracing, living, breathing sound to it. Equally transporting and soaring the listener to different peaceful planes, wrapping them in sounds, colours, textures and emotions, all conducted with the sincere ego-less affection of what is effectively a sonic shaman. The album ends with a recording of another spiritual leader Ram Dass sharing guidance in dulcet tones, equal to the tender affection of the accompanying sounds, Jon playing piano.
And so to RITUAL.
From the very first listen of the album, in the most radiant and rapturous way possible, it made the previous album feel like a mere sketch for what was unfurling before, and in me. Though some 20 minutes shorter than its predecessor, ethereally landing at 41 minutes, it instantly feels vastly more transportive, almost inter-dimensional. Jon has always said he views tracks as building and filling rooms with colours, textures and shapes. We are way beyond rooms now, and though he has spoken about palaces in regards to RITUAL, it’s quite apt, but I felt like floating in futuristic cathedrals, or inter-dimensional galaxies, with acoustics that I have never heard nor felt before. It’s the sound portal equivalent of Dorthy in The Wizard of Oz turning from black and white to vibrant 8K colour, in your internal virtual reality IMAX screen, hidden behind your closed eyes.
I say internal as RITUAL is the natural evolution of Music For Psychedelic Therapy. All the discoveries, revelations, processes, techniques, technology, learnings, growing, healing abilities, harnessing indigenous wisdom and effectively rebirth of the innate power of Jon’s music and skill nurtured previously, are honed to rapturous levels here, and to be enjoyed, explored to the fullest extent, should be done with your eyes closed.
Given the title of the album, it aptly describes the journey of the album for the listener, but also acts as a guide to get the fullest reaction to it. Curating a setup, space and uninterrupted time frame to fully fall in and drift away, with what I can only describe as some of the most beautiful harmonies, rhythms and abstract sounds I have ever heard. If love and devotion was a sound, it’s this, all this.
The seed for RITUAL was first sown when Jon was invited to create a composition for Dreamachine in 2022. An immersive experience where the participant sat comfortably in a dark round temple like room, all facing each other. Speakers were built into the seats that would envelope them in the scientifically curated sound that Jon had constructed for the journey. With eyes closed, flashing white LED lights would simulate the brain to generate abstract images in the mind of the ‘viewer’. The sounds being played would generate the colours and textures of what was being seen.
I went to Dreamachine a few times, and it absolutely blew my mind every time, especially because of the soundscape. For the duration of the flight, everyone became a momentary psychonaut, equally euphoric, meditative and relaxing. I have wanted my own Dreamachine ever since.
It feels like a disservice to try and describe RITUAL. Beauty is in the inner eye of the listener. Everyone is going to be wrapped in a genuine radiant beauty of their own making upon listening. Even the word listening doesn’t do it justice to what has been curated here. Hypnotic abstract harmonies, distorted field recordings, reality and fantasy coexisting as one.
That leads to an element of guidance that I will contribute to the work. It’s the album that I have listened to the preview copy of by a staggering amount more than any other album I have ever reviewed. Having listened to it on a loop countless times, in varying situations and sound systems. Finding the absolute best sound system or device possible will only add multiple levels and depths to the journey. Jon has recently been hosting listening sessions of the album with full 360º sound systems, which he clearly had explored to the fullest capacity in the production, you literally float in sound.
In Addition to that, I tried replicating my own Dreamachine ceremony at home, laying back in a dark room, and had a strobe emulator on my phone. It worked phenomenally well, stimulating similar imagery to the original experience. I will add though, if you are photosensitive to any extent, you absolutely must not try this, as it may trigger seizures. And of course there’s the opportunity to enhance the journey in a myriad of other ways.
Regardless of how much you are willing to invest in your own ritual of the 8 chapters of this seamless soundscape, the divine healing capacity is a given. With the ever development of sound technology, and the profound, spiritual abilities of artists such as Jon Hopkins, it is genuinely staggering at the possibilities of where this could go.
It’s also staggering that this album for all it’s obvious beauty, feels like Jon is only getting started. We’ve all just landed on a new planet of sound, which will be eagerly explored in further works. What a time to be alive.
Ultimately, close your eyes, you’re missing the show. That note played by a four year old, has just gone interstellar.
Jon Hopkins RITUAL is out 30 August via Domino. Check www.jonhopkins.co.uk for more information.