Domino Vinyl & CDs

Review: Having taken time out to travel the world and experience new things (including psychedelic substances in California), John Hopkins planned to make Singularity, his ninth album, "a sonic ecosystem that starts and ends on the same note". He soon got frustrated by these limitations, so instead just laid down a fluid and hazy album that combines his usual luscious, ambient electronics with a variety of sparse, heavy and off-kilter rhythms. While undeniably laidback in parts, the album also boasts a number of foreboding techno workouts and uses a wider palette of instrumental sounds than we've come to expect (including some fine strings and his own intricate piano playing). The resultant set is rather impressive, all told, and while not quite a "sonic ecosystem", it's certainly an enjoyable journey.

Review: At this stage in his career, Jon Hopkins should be able to do whatever the hell he likes. After proving his synaesthetic abilities throughout the 2010s - with masterpieces like 'Light Through The Veins' and his last album 'Singularity'- it's clear this climactic electronica artist knows no bounds. Now he debuts a new full guided meditation-style LP documenting his ketamine-fulled revelations realised in a remote Ecuadorian cave. Relinquishing beats and drum sounds, this is a fully ambient affair from Hopkins, and routinely features soothing, sampled vocal snippets from the late yogi and guru Baba Ram Daas, as well as collabs with producer and psychedelic ceremony guide East Forest.

Review: Jon Hopkins' fourth album Immunity is a bona fide classic that is now a full ten years old. To celebrate the milestone, it has been newly remastered for this special reissue. Listening back now reminds you just what a confident and adventurous record this was - a creative trip deep inside Hopkins' mind that brought totters everything he had done and learned up to that point. The focus was firmly on the dancefloor but still, the tracks come with plenty of emotional nuances, from sad piano motifs to stirring choral drones but shifting rhythms and real-world sound effects that brought the whole thing to life.

Review: With Ritual, electronica mastermind Jon Hopkins follows up his storied meditation-aid LP, Music For Psychedelic Therapy, for a return to the sublime uplifts that characterised his establishing sound. Somehow, Hopkins says of his latest full-length, "I have no idea what I'm doing when I'm composing. I don't know where it's coming from, and I don't know where it's going, nor does it seem to matter. I just know when it is finished." Such remarkable humility sits in in stark contrast to the deep grandeur of the record, which refreshingly seems to have been made without overconscious intent; Hopkins' describes his approach to the album as a simple matter of creation, without too much second-guessing or reasoning after the fact. This would seem to counteract Psychedelic Therapy's interest in self-reflection and personal enlightenment; Ritual, as we glean from the title, is more action-oriented, pursuing the many epic pilgrimages and blue beyonds that Hopkins was first known to have embarked upon.

Review: At this point in his career, it seems that classically trained pianist come electronica visionary Jon Hopkins can do no wrong. Whether we're thinking of his unmistakable all-time great LP Immunity, or his more recent inward-bound journeys into a trippy serial panacea, Music For Psychedelic Therapy, the musician, in Domino's own words, is an established auteur, capable of casting a whole range of dark sonorous arts perhaps only the most storied audio wizards can cast. His latest record, Ritual, is the latest utterance to escape the Hopkins grimoire; staying true to the adage that a real magician simply does not reveal their secrets, Hopkins is deliberately cryptic about the meaning of Ritual, except for the fact that his music-making process is itself a ritual. Humbly, he insists "I have no idea what I'm doing when I'm composing". Well, from the various sublime, epiphanic, master-warlock's evocations heard across this record, it sure doesn't sound like it!

Review: Much has been made of Jon Hopkins' intentions with his new album Music For Psychedelic Therapy, but whether you're a devoted tripper or a sober psychonaut his new album has plenty to offer. Of course Hopkins has more than proved himself over the years as a phenomenal producer and composer, but here he's replaced his brooding cinematic techscapes for blissful ambience draped in rich overtones and gently drifting patterns of melody and rhythm. It's wholly invigorating and relaxing, clearly designed to soothe the listener in stark contrast to the shock and awe he normally inspires amongst his considerable fan base.