Jon Hopkins, Music as a Journey and as a Transcendent Ritual

Ambient music but to travel with the mind, not just to relax: on Friday 30th “Ritual” is released, the new album by producer Jon Hopkins, one of the most important names in electronic music of the last 15 years, but also a collaborator of Coldplay and Brian Eno. It was the latter, his mentor, who defined ambient in the 70s: “music that can remain in the background, but that gratifies you if you listen to it carefully”. Now, however, it has become an overused term for generic instrumental music that fills playlists on platforms: “What people call ambient today it’s essentially relaxing electronic music made with synths, a sort of sonic incense…”, says Hopkins, via Zoom from Berlin.

“This album, rather than relaxing, aims at the heart, at emotional processes, it is an electronic symphony,” he explains.

“Ritual” proceeds as a story divided into movements with suggestive titles (“Illusion”, “Trascend/Lament”, “evocation”, “Dissolution”, “Nothing is lost”). A structure inspired by the narrative theory of the “hero’s journey”, the one that also inspired “Star Wars”: “I think that sound can convey even more than words”, explains Hopkins.
“Ritual” comes out in a period that marks the return of electronic heavyweights, who are releasing their albums this month: Floating Points (“Cascade”, September 13), Jamie XX (“In waves”, September 20), but also new stars like Fred Again..(also a student of Brian Eno: “Ten days” comes out on September 6) or LP Giobbi (October). Hopkins, however, says he has now distanced himself from the clubbing scene and the mainstream: “Ritual” is his most ambitious and stimulating album.

From Coldplay to “Ritual”

Jon Hopkins’ journey began twenty years ago: “Ritual” is his tenth work between electronics, ambient, soundtracks, collaborations such as the wonderful “Field recordings jubilee” with King Creosote, and an album with Brian Eno and Leo Abrahams.

But the turning point in his career came thanks to Eno, who put him in touch with Coldplay: in 2008 Chris Martin fell in love with “Life Through the Veins”, a song that was unreleased at the time, and that music became “Life in technicolor”, opening “Viva la vida”, as well as the band’s concerts. Hopkins found himself co-author and co-producer of one of the most successful albums of the decade. 16 years later, in 2024, Coldplay’s tour was declared the most successful live show of recent years: the music that introduces the band on stage is always by Hopkins, another unreleased composition.

“I was only 27,” he tells me. “One of the first sessions was just me and Chris in Los Angeles and I was super nervous, and that’s when he heard ‘Life Through the Veins,’ which I would release shortly after. Thanks to Coldplay, I had the financial security to work for a long time on an album like ‘Immunity,’ which defined my career,” he recalls – citing the 2013 album considered his masterpiece (and reissued last year in an expanded version for its tenth anniversary).

A Ritual for Psychedelic Therapy

“Ritual,” which comes out tomorrow, August 30, follows a different path: it is the continuation of his exploration of ambient music, a path that began with “Music for psychedelic therapy,” released three years ago. “An album without the rhythmic part, perhaps a reaction to all my years of touring and clubbing: I wanted to explore the deepest and most vulnerable side of making music,” he explains.
“Ritual”, even if it is not a classic electronic album, at least partially recovers his unique sonic signature, the one that made him a legend among lovers of the genre and a point of reference among his colleagues.

But Hopkins is now on a different side from the producers who fill festivals and arenas – if not stadiums – with their beats, performances and DJ sets. “I feel like I’ve reached the end of that path. One day I might make music in that format again, but now I’m more interested in the ability of sound to create spaces and a form of intensity without the need for a rhythmic part.”
So much so that, he says, he now does few shows and even fewer DJ sets. The new album, like the previous one, is presented with a series of listening sessions in which “Ritual” is played with the lights off, to create an immersive and transcendent experience.

Music as a journey and as a transcendent collective ritual

Hopkins defines “Ritual” as an electronic symphony: more than musicians, he cites classical mythology and scholars Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler and their theory of the “Hero’s Journey” among his influences: “This album is thought of as a journey, with its own narrative arc: discovery, there is creation, destruction, rebirth, memory: these are all simple ideas, which you can convey with sound. Human beings and music have evolved together; already in ancient times, people sought transcendent states through rhythm and playing together. Clubbing, in the end, is our current version of accessing the same state of transcendence as our ancestors. For me, the real crux of the album is the emotion, the connection”.

For this reason, Hopkins organizes, more than performances, “immersive” events, in which music is listened to together, without a performance: “immersing myself in music is something I’ve been looking for all my life, since I was a teenager just happily sitting there with headphones for hours. Now we are in an era in which the attention span is at an all-time low, people listen to music however they want and you can’t control it: the events we organize are a way to suggest a possibility of listening in its full depth. But today everyone has good headphones: you can just turn off the lights and lie down in bed.

I point out to him that the album launch events are a bit like the listening party by Kanye West, thousands of people in a arena and him in the center miming to the songs: “Really? It’s crazy… But maybe if his fans really enjoyed it, it’s okay. But it’s a good idea, we can also wear weird weird masks and charge a lot more…”

Hopkins speaks in the plural because next to him is Dan Kijowski, alias 7Rays, his childhood friend reunited in recent years. “Ritual,” the two say, is a collaborative album like “Music for psychedelic therapy,” co-written with Vylana, Ishq, Clark, Emma Smith, Daisy Vatalaro, and Cherif Hashizume. Making electronic music can be a very solitary process even when it is meant to be shared and danced to: “I don’t think I would be able to make an album by myself like this anymore,” he explains. “Jon is a great arranger and curator, he manages to bring together different people and sounds. Together we function like an old creaking machine: the process may seem strange and shaky, but the result is unique,” ​​Dan echoes.

What happened to ambient music?

But, with these ways of listening, and even with the “relaxing” instrumental music automatically produced by artificial intelligence, does it still make sense to talk about “Ambient?” “Genre names can be problematic, especially when they are very prescriptive. Eno meant music ambient in a very specific way: sounds that can stay in the background, be ignored, but also give satisfaction and pleasure if listened to carefully. While I think that what people call ambient today is essentially relaxing electronic music made with synths. A sort of sonic incense… In this album in a certain sense, more than relaxing, I aim at the heart, at the emotional processes”.

For some people, especially those who come from music played with traditional instruments, there is still a distinction between acoustic music and electronic music: acoustic music would be real music and electronic music, music made by machines is not. “For me, sound is sound. Music is music. Going from a piano, to an orchestra, to a software is an organic process: any instrument, any arrangement, any configuration of electronics and acoustics is equally interesting. Those who also separate the sound sources are wrong: in the end, music is about how it makes the listener feel.”