Jon Hopkins has made a remarkable name for himself in the world of ambient and experimental electronic music, drawing upon early training as a classical pianist while crossing over into pop. Collaborative work with Brian Eno led to Hopkins adding ambient textures to Coldplay‘s Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends album in 2007. A more integrated collaboration with Eno and Leo Abrahams produced the 2010 album Small Boat on a Milk Sea. Recently, Hopkins composed the opening music for Coldplay’s headlining appearance at Glastonbury in 2024.
Hopkins’ solo albums range from the rock-adjacent grooves heard on his 2001 debut, Opalescent, to the eerie cosmic soundscapes of his soundtrack to the 2010 film Monsters. Variety ensued with the harder-edged IDM (intelligent dance music) of 2013’s Immunity. In 2021, Jon Hopkins hit a new plateau with the release of Music for Psychedelic Therapy, a broad-ranging work combining ambient electronica with field recordings, wafts of acoustic piano, and spoken-word passages by the late spiritual guru Ram Dass.
On his latest album, RITUAL, Jon Hopkins strips back the musical layers. Conceived as a continuous “ceremonial album” in eight chapters, the album emphasizes minimalism more than Hopkins’ other work in recent years. Gone are the more overtly acoustic sounds heard on Music for Psychedelic Therapy, although much of RITUAL still uses human voices, strings, and guitars in manipulated form.
RITUAL began life as part of Dreamachine, a British-funded immersive experience in which artists, scientists, and philosophers collaborated on “a new kind of secular temple”. Conceived in 2022 with plans to tour internationally in 2025, Dreamachine provides Jon Hopkins’ music with the environment it needs to be fully appreciated on a conceptual level. Minus the stroboscopic lights, a basic evocation of the experience (call it semi-immersive) can be had by playing RITUAL in the dark through headphones or a quality sound system.
The album begins quietly with “part i: altar” as ethereal synthesizers rumble in the lower register. Non-verbal vocalizing by “sound alchemist” Vylana adds texture as the music broils slowly into dark rhythmic patterns. Each of the eight sonic chapters blends seamlessly with the others, building in intensity as Hopkins adds further layers from his collection of vintage Moog, Roland, and Sequential synthesizers. The strings (by Emma Smith and Daisy Vatalaro) and guitars (by Leo Abrahams) are more muted textures in the atmosphere of the music. The overall effect of the music feels entirely contemporary while at the same time evoking classic German electronic music by the likes of Faust and Tangerine Dream.
By the fourth song, “The Veil”, a collaboration with UK electronic artist 7RAYS, the music acquires a more percussive feel – an ancient ritual filtered through a cosmic field. The volume builds over the following two tracks until “Solar Goddess Return” reaches its ominous climax. Track seven, “Dissolution”, returns the suite to its more ambient beginnings, easing the listener back into a state of quiet contemplation. The final part, “Nothing Is Lost”, shifts into piano-like arpeggios to form a coda to the entire suite.
Jon Hopkins’ compositional abilities are in fine form throughout. His views on his work are modest: “I have no idea what I’m doing when I’m composing. It is a mindless act. I’m following a thread, a trail.” Yet, Hopkins also has a fine ear for nuance and a natural sense of dynamics, making the music on RITUAL deliberately create an emotional experience for the listener. RITUAL is available on double-black vinyl (three sides of music, with an etching on Side D), CD, and streaming formats. A series of listening events is scheduled for September in the United Kingdom and Canada.