Forever Held

New from the combined talents of Jon Hopkins and Olafur Arnalds is Forever Held, a track that is only three minutes and twenty one seconds long and yet manages to contain within it the entire history of the universe, from the very dawn of the beginning of time to the end of everything, via synths, orchestral strings (arrangement by Olafur) and keys, and some very faint drums, ending in a drawn out sigh. Weirdly and for reasons I'm not sure of, the version available to buy at Bandcamp is even shorter, just two minutes thirty eight. 

Forever Held was inspired by a collaboration between Jon and NASA, an immersive experience at NASA HQ in Washington DC. Apparently, it was also used as part of the opening track on the recent Coldplay album and they came on stage to it at Glastonbury last June. Fret not, they won't be mentioned here again. 

Ritual

Jon Hopkins is back  with a new album at the end of the month, a forty one minute long electronic symphony called Ritual, divided into eight parts. His ambient/ meditation/ found sound double album, Music For Psychedelic Therapy, was a highlight of 2021 for me and this feels like the flipside, a physical counterpoint- noise and rhythms, layers of synth, sub- bass and thumping drums. 

This is Ritual (Palace), the second piece on the album, six minutes of light, sweet, gently building electronic music, music that makes you feel like you're connected to something bigger- an ongoing theme in Hopkins' music (see also Everything's Connected for one). 

Sequenced later on is Ritual (Evocation), something much more intense and visceral, the physical tension palpable and engulfing, waves of sound building, threatening to collapse but never quite breaking until well past the five and a half minute mark. 

The album is available in all the usual places including Bandcamp. The use of the word journey to describe electronic music is an overused one but in Ritual's case it feels very appropriate. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Jon Hopkins

Last Sunday's spoken word/ ambient mix featured two tracks with Jon Hopkins on board, one his own recording with the voice of Ram Dass and the other a track with David Holmes and Stephen Rea reading Seamus Heaney. Both could have been on today's Sunday mix, forty five minutes of Jon Hopkins, an artist who has the ability to switch between spaced out ambient, neo- classical piano and full on electronic rave. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Jon Hopkins

• Bats In The Attic
• Deep In The Glowing Heart
• Emerald Rush
• Luminous Spaces
• Everything Connected 
• Glitter (Jon Hopkins Remix)
• Love Flows Over Us In Prismatic Waves

Bats In The Attic is from Diamond Mine, an album Jon recorded with King Creosote in 2011. Kenny's fragile voice and guitar are matched by Jon's use of found sounds and musique concrete techniques. 

Deep In The Glowing Heart and Love Flows Over Us In Prismatic Waves are both from 2021's Music For Psychedelic Therapy, an album I've gone back to many times over the last eighteen months. 

Emerald Rush is a stuttering, distorted building piece of music from Singularity, his 2018 album that sounds as deep as the lush deep blue/ violet vinyl it was pressed on. Everything Connected is from the same album, an epic piece of entrancing, ebbing and flowing, intense 21st century dance music.

Luminous Spaces is a version of Luminous Beings, a track from Singularity but with Kelly Lee Owens on vocals, a track that achieves take off in spectacular fashion, music for stellar places. 

Glitter is by Daniel Avery, a remix of a song from Song For Alpha, the 2018 album that started his remarkable run of recent albums. Jon's remix takes Daniel's thumpy original and increases everything- the kick drum bangs and rattles and the drop and crashing re- entry two thirds of the way through are heart- stoppingly exciting, capable of making me feel vaguely anxious and laughing out loud at the same time. Goosebumps stuff. 

Forty Five Minutes of Speaking Voices

I had the misfortune recently to see an advert on TV with the voice of Alan Watts is being used to sell cruises for the Cunard shipping company. Watts was a writer, speaker and philosopher who did much in the 1950s and 60s to popularise Eastern philosophies in the west. His lectures and speeches have been widely available for a long time, not least since the rise of Youtube. His son tries to control the use of them through an Alan Watts website where they can be downloaded when paid for, so presumably Cunard paid for the use of Alan's voice rather than just ripping it from Youtube. The advert chops up Watts' speech and misses the end section entirely, not surprisingly, (knowingly) misrepresenting the message of the original, selling a luxury cruise on the high seas as the dream Watts speaks of. I'm not here to complain about advertising, it's a bit late in the day for that. Watts' voice and speeches are instantly recognisable and catnip for use in media where his message, accent and speaking voice and rhythms are striking and attention grabbing. 

I came across this clip this week too, writer Paul Bowles interviewed in 1970 about a trance dance and self mutilation he witnessed while resident in Morocco. Bowles left the USA in 1947 and settled in Tangier, recording local musicians and writing. His novel The Sheltering Sky came out in 1949, turned into an epic film by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1990 (I read the book and saw the film at the time and enjoyed both but don't remember much about either now so need to revisit). Bowles' speaking voice, like Alan Watts, very much lends itself to being set to music, not just the content but the tone and timbre and patterns of speech. Which led to think that speaking voices set to music would make a good longform mix.

The mix below is forty five minutes of speaking voices set to music, sometimes where voice and music have been specifically made for and recorded with each other and sometimes where the voice has been taken from earlier recordings and sampled. I could probably find enough to make a second at some point in the future. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Speaking Voices

• Jon Hopkins, Ram Dass and East Forest: Sit Around The Fire
• 10:40: The First Step
• Coyote: The Outsider
• David Holmes and Jon Hopkins ft. Stephen Rea: Elsewhere Anchises
• Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright: Be Love
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Glitches (Flug 8 Remix)
• Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows

Sit Around The Fire is the closing track on Jon Hopkins 2022 Music For Psychedelic Therapy, the voice of guru and writer Ram Dass talking about spiritual discovery through sitting round the fire and staring at the flames, while Hopkins' slow piano chords and sound of wood burning and crackling drift by. 

The First Step came out on Higher Love Vol. 2 last year, a 10:40 track that borrows a Bertrand Russell interview and layers a slow burning groove and wash around it, growing in emotion with nods to Elvis and Spiritualized. Russell speaks of acting and of doing in spite of doubt and in the absence of religion.  Magical stuff. 

Coyote are masters of sampling voices and building beautiful Balearic songs around them. This one takes Alan Watts talking about artists, work, states of evolution and sane and insane societies, adds some lovely acoustic guitar, and pays tribute to Andrew Weatherall (who styled himself as The Outsider when writing for Boy's Own back in the late 80s). The Outsider is the last song on their 2021 album The Mystery Light, a highly recommended record. 

Elsewhere Anchises is from David Holmes' Late Night Tales, a stunning 2016 compilation album that pulled together nineteen songs of life and loss, spanning Buddy Holly and David Crosby to Eat Light Become Light and songs David made for the album. On Elsewhere Anchises actor Stephen Rea speaks the words of Seamus Heaney over David's ambient backdrop, the sound of something quite special taking place. 

Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright have released one of this year's best dub/ dub techno/ psychedelia albums, Psychedelic Science. Be Love opens the album with the voice of Ram Dass making his second appearance on this mix. 

Steve Queralt and Michael Smith released the four track EP Sun Moon Town last year, Ride bassist Steve writing and recording four very different pieces of music and Hartlepool born writer and flaneur Michael narrating his own tales of adventures and wanderings in the 21st century, a place and time that seems quite bewildering to him. The Flug 8 remix comes from this year's remix package, a dissection of late stage capitalism and advertising agency dreams you can dance to.  

Fireflies is one of Nina Walsh's musical outlets, a South London based collective. The voice is that of Joe Duggan, Derry born and resident of Crystal Palace. 'If anyone knows', Joe says, 'Leonard Cohen knows'. 

Monday's Long Song

The DJ gig at the Golden Lion was a huge amount of fun and exceeded expectations in lots of ways- full report to follow at some point this week. But I was also a little fragile yesterday and quite tired. 

A year ago Jon Hopkins released Music For Psychedelic Therapy, an ambient album that began in a cave in a forest in Ecuador. No beats, just acres of wide open space, delicate sound, slowly shifting synths and some echo- laden piano. On Sit Around The Fire, an eight minute meditation that starts with the sound of a waterfall and a ghostly synth choir, Jon samples a speech by American spiritual teacher and yoga guru Ram Dass, whose calm and matter of fact voice talking about life, love and being is just the sort of thing to listen to when you're feeling a little overcome. 

Sit Around The Fire

Monday's Long Song

Jon Hopkins has a new album, Music For Psychedelic Therapy, inspired by a visit to an ancient cave network in Ecuador, making field recordings while there, and then recording while microdosing with the intention of making an album for people to accompany supervised therapeutic journeys in altered states for people suffering from PTSD and depression. You could easily make a mess of that entire situation. But Jon Hopkins is very skilled and this fifteen minute ambient odyssey, a section called Love Flows Over Us In Prismatic Waves/ Deep In The Glowing Heart- drones, melodies, widescreen psychedelic ambient deep listening- is a genuinely transporting and hypnotising quarter of an hour. 

Isolation Mix Seven

An hour and a minute of stitched together songs for Saturday. This one caused me a bit of a headache at times. It was an attempt I think at first to try to join some dots together in terms of feel or sounds, with a nod to Kraftwerk following Florian Schneider's death last week. There was an earlier version that went quite techno/dance for the last twenty minutes but I then went back and did the end section again. I'm still not sure I got it quite right, and think I may have tried to cover too many bases stylistically, but my self imposed deadline was approaching so 'publish and be damned', as the Duke of Wellington said. Although he wasn't dealing with the business of trying to get spaghetti westerns, indie dance, shoegaze and leftfield electronic music to sit together in one mix was he?

Ennio Morricone: Watch Chimes (From ‘For A Few Dollars More’)

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp: Endgame

Talk Talk: Life’s What You Make It

Saint Etienne: Kiss And Make Up (Midsummer Madness Mix)

Spacemen 3: Big City (Everyone I Know Can Be Found Here)

Beyond The Wizards Sleeve: Diagram Girl (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re- Animation)

My Bloody Valentine: Don’t Ask Why

Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens: Luminous Spaces

Kraftwerk: Numbers

Death In Vegas: Consequences Of Love (Chris and Cosey Remix)

Chris Carter: Moonlight

Simple Minds: Theme For Great Cities

Durutti Column: It’s Wonderful

I have a significant birthday fast approaching. A few months ago we had planned that today would be a day of celebrating with anyone who wanted to join us, starting with lunch and few beers in town and then a tram pub crawl southbound out of the city centre towards Sale, stopping off in Old Trafford (maybe) and Stretford (definitely) before some drinks locally in the evening. That obviously isn't happening. I'll have to re-schedule for my 51st. 

Luminous Spaces

A thing of beauty from Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens, which began life as a remix of one of the songs from his Singularity album, gained a vocal from Kelly and then took on a life of its own, developing into this seven minute, weightless journey through time and space.

Opal Shadow Glitter

This time last year two records were released, one of which I missed out from my end of 2018 list which shocks and appals me as it is a stunning piece of work. It is this one, Four Tet's remix of Bicep's Opal, an eight minute beauty built around a stuttering riff, bells and happy-sad synths. There wasn't much that came out last year that topped this.



I also re-found this, a track from Daniel Avery's Projector e.p., also out in March last year following his Song For Alpha album. There's a new album out in April, Song For Alpha 2, that pulls together all the remixes and e.p. tracks plus nine new ones (from the hundred or so he recorded that he then created the original album from). The one which grabbed me again recently is Shadow Mountain, a slow moving late night thing with waves, reverb and a snare but which turns towards the strobe part way through and becomes seriously intense.



One of the remixes included in Song For Alpha 2 is Jon Hopkins' rework of Glitter. This is a monster, centred on a massive rattling, brooding kick drum and tension that builds in waves around it. At about three minutes Hopkins starts to drip some repeating melodies in that dance around like moths circling a naked flame. Everything drops away five minutes twenty, the kick resurfaces, and then after a few seconds explodes in a burst of light and colour. Magic.

C O S M

Something cosmic to kick Tuesday off, the return leg of the Daniel Avery-Jon Hopkins remix swap. Here Avery spins Hopkins into different spaces. The part at about 40 seconds where the reverb drenched synth comes in is heartstopping.



Avery put this out recently too, a beatless, ambient piece, fifty minutes, free download.

Glitter

Daniel Avery and Jon Hopkins have made two of this year's most enthralling electronic albums (Song For Alpha and Singularity respectively) and are about to start a tour of the USA together. As an extra they've swapped remixes, taking a track from each other's albums and reworking it. The first one out in public is Hopkins new version of Avery's Glitter, a thumping percussive workout with little subliminal melodies, building in intensity for a good seven minutes.

Everything Connected

I got the new Jon Hopkins album at the weekend, a beautifully packaged album on two vinyl discs (which are pressed onto a sumptuous deep blue vinyl to match the album cover. Occasionally I buy  a new record and am shocked to find when I take it out of the inner sleeve that it has been pressed on black vinyl. I'm happy with black vinyl too- I don't really need all these colourful discs).

Hopkins suffered from writer's block after his 2013 album and according to an interview I read recently found his way out of it with a combination of meditation and hallucinogens. The album is a beauty, a record to lose oneself in, expertly paced with a balance of electronic grooves, meditative piano pieces and tracks which are physical, that demand a response from the listener. In places the rhythms and the drums threaten to run away with songs, the synths and instruments having to twist themselves inside out to keep up. The one that keeps me flicking the needle back at the moment is the ten minute techno track Everything Connected, a monster of beats and bass and synths, building and dropping and getting a little bit frazzled. It is, as people like to say, a banger. It fits well with last year's Bicep album and that recent Four Tet remix of Bicep.



I am now away for a few days. We are taking ourselves off after work tonight to the Lake District for a few days, camping and living under the constellations Hopkins has adorned his record with. See you for more blogging fun early next week.

Buzzing

This is more of a Saturday night post but by Saturday night I shall be on holiday, hundreds of miles away so it's a Tuesday morning post instead.

This superb hour long mix by Jon Hopkins via the ever reliable Fact has had me skipping about the room recently- there's a magnificent bit about twenty minutes in where the tsk-tsk-tsk drums starting to be overtaken by a buzz-buzz-buzzing noise, like a swarm of bees have entered the control room and are flying around in time to the music. And that's just the first twenty five minutes- it keeps getting better and better (and noisier and louder) after that. He worked with Coldplay via Brian Eno a few years back but there's no need for that fact to worry you here- this is full on electronic dance music of the minimal house-techno variety. Free download too (but annoyingly it won't embed).