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Jonathan Julian Hopkins (born 15 August 1979) is an English musician and producer who writes and performs electronic music. He began his career playing keyboards for Imogen Heap, and has produced but also contributed to albums by Brian Eno, Coldplay, David Holmes and others.
Hopkins composed the soundtrack for the 2010 film Monsters, which was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Score. His third studio album, Insides, reached No. 15 on the US Dance/Electronic Albums chart in 2009. His collaborations on Small Craft on a Milk Sea with Brian Eno and Leo Abrahams and Diamond Mine with King Creosote both reached No. 82 on the UK Albums Chart. Both of his albums Diamond Mine (2011) and Immunity (2013) were nominated for the Mercury Prize. His fifth studio album Singularity received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronic Album in December 2018. Hopkins's sixth studio album, Music for Psychedelic Therapy, was released on 12 November 2021.
At the age of 12, Hopkins began studying piano at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music in London, where he continued until age 17. The composers that were greatly influential to him whilst studying were Maurice Ravel and Stravinsky, and he eventually won a competition to perform a concert of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G with an orchestra. For a time Hopkins considered becoming a professional pianist, only to decide classical performance was too formal and unnerving to pursue full-time.
As a teenager he also listened to acid house, early hardcore techno, grunge, as well as electronic music artists such as Acen, Seefeel, and Plaid. When Hopkins was 14, he got his first computer, an Amiga 500, and started programming MIDI material. By the age of 15, he had saved up enough money from winning piano competitions to buy a low-level professional Roland synth, and on this he began creating his first full-length electronic compositions.
In 1999, Hopkins signed with boutique London label Just Music as a solo artist, and began recording his debut album Opalescent. At the time he was also working part-time as a studio session musician. Opalescent attracted positive press attention upon its release, and several tracks were licensed to Sex and the City. The Guardian reviewed it as "a beautifully realised debut... Using synth oozes, phased and echoed guitars and pianos and chilled beats, his wonderful tunes drift from calm to eerie power like a restless sea... It will delight any lovers of beautiful music." DJ Magazine gave it 4/5 stars, and stated "Piano, guitar strings and slow beats blend like the clouds at sunset (or an opiate smoothy) filtering in and out like elegantly wasted beauty. Darker drums add a further depth."
Hopkins released his second album, Contact Note, on Just Music in 2004 while still working as a studio musician. The album slowly gained an underground following but failed to take off, and led Hopkins to become disillusioned with his solo career, and take a break from writing to learn how to become a producer.
In 2007, Hopkins was invited by Eno, who was producing Coldplay's upcoming album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, to join the band in the studio for a day. Hopkins ended up staying and contributing to the album for the next year, co-producing several tracks and playing organs, Pump organ, and other keyboard instruments on others. The intro to the track "Violet Hill" came from an improvisation with Hopkins and Davide Rossi, the album's string arranger. Throughout this period Hopkins was periodically creating his own solo tracks, and his song "Light Through the Veins" was adapted to serve as the introduction to the album's first track "Life in Technicolor". "Light Through the Veins" was also picked by the band to serve as the backing for the track "The Escapist", which is Hidden track at the end of the album. Viva la Vida was released in 2008, and won Best Rock Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards and became the best-selling album of 2008. Coldplay asked Hopkins to serve as the pre-show DJ and opening act for their 2008 world tour. Hopkins toured with the band for six months through England, the United States, and Japan. He performed at venues including Madison Square Garden and the London O2 Arena, with crowds as large as 20,000 people.
Hopkins also has co-writing or producing credits on albums by artists such as David Holmes and Dan Arborise. He is also known for remixing a variety of artists, including Wild Beasts, Nosaj Thing, Imogen Heap, Four Tet, and James Yorkston. He was also one of the few producers chosen by Radio 1's Rob Da Bank to remix film director David Lynch's first electronica release, "Good Day Today" / "I Know", which was released on Sunday Best Records.
Insides charted at No. 15 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart. PopMatters listed the album as one of the top ten electronic albums of 2009. According to reviews, the album "takes its cues from ambient music electronica, but uses strings and piano, along with some very tasty beats and dubstep-influenced bass on some tracks." TinyMixTapes stated the album
strikes me as his single most aggressive release yet. His sense of timing, the clarity of his production, and the variety of effects he employs draw you into the story that each instrumental tells. Jon Hopkins is not a button-pushing man of presets; he is a bona fide composer and a trained pianist. Craftsmanship sets him apart, and allows Insides to be as incredibly moving as it is and always will be. It will easily be one of the best electronic albums of 2009.Paul Clarke of the BBC wrote that
Hopkins is capable of producing music as epic, soaring and emotional as any power ballad in his own way. Take "Light Through The Veins" for example ... a close relative of Ulrich Schnauss' "In All the Wrong Places", it's a majestic piece of widescreen shoegazing which grows ever more expansive throughout its entire ten-minute duration ... no amount of reflected glory could ever fully illuminate Insides' mysterious depths.
Also in 2009, Hopkins collaborated with Brian Eno and Leo Abrahams to score the Peter Jackson film The Lovely Bones. In early 2010, Hopkins composed the score for the short film Rob and Valentyna in Scotland directed by Eric Lynne, which won an honourable mention for the short film-making award at Sundance. Also in 2010, Hopkins was commissioned to create the soundtrack for the British science fiction film Monsters, which was directed by Gareth Edwards. To create the score, Hopkins partly used string parts performed by arranger Davide Rossi and guitar by Leo Abrahams. The soundtrack album was released on 29 November 2010 on Domino Records. In 2011, the score was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Score.
In 2010, Hopkins collaborated with Leo Abrahams and Brian Eno to create the album Small Craft on a Milk Sea. Released on Warp Records in late 2010, the album is based on a three-week session of improvisation wherein the artists recorded about six hours of material a day.
In 2011, Hopkins collaborated with Scottish musician King Creosote to create the album Diamond Mine, which featured lyrics and vocals by Creosote sung over musical backdrops arranged and recorded by Hopkins. The album was a culmination of about seven weeks of work spread over seven years of recording and collaboration, from whenever the two artists had the opportunity to get together. The album was released on 28 March 2011 to acclaim, which included a glowing review from NPR. On 19 July 2011, Hopkins and Anderson were announced as nominees for the 2011 Barclaycard Mercury Prize, which is annually awarded for best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Also in 2011, the EP Honest Words, a Hopkins collaboration with King Creosote, was released on Domino Records. In April 2012, this was followed by another collaboration with King Creosote: The Jubilee, also on Domino.
Hopkins wrote the score for the 2013 film by Kevin Macdonald, How I Live Now.
| "Hopkins created the album's warm, alive feel by shunning digital perfection in favor of the analog synthesis of original sounds, both electronic and physical. The ambient prelude of the haunting, scrambled glitch-house opener 'We Disappear'—a key unlocks the door of Hopkins' London studio and his footsteps lead in—is more than idle window dressing: He is ushering us into the tactile space that suffuses the record. He drums on desks, plays salt shakers, slows down serendipitous recordings of nearby fireworks, boosts the kick-drummed rattle of a window." |
| — Pitchfork Media |
Immunity peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Top Electronic Albums chart in the United States. In Britain, it was nominated for the 2013 Mercury Prize for best album. The album met with a largely positive reception among critics, receiving perfect scores from Mixmag and MusicOMH, and 4/5 from The Guardian. Pitchfork Media described Immunity as a "remarkably visceral, sensual, confident electronic record," and MusicOMH called it a "modern classic".
The video for the single "Open Eye Signal" directed by Aoife McArdle won best cinematography at the UK Music Video Awards.
Hopkins' fifth studio album, Singularity, was released on Domino Records on 4 May 2018. It was nominated for the Grammy award for Best Dance/Electronic Album. Hopkins' sixth studio album, Music for Psychedelic Therapy, was released on 12 November 2021. It comprises ambient music designed to accompany Psychedelic drug, including a track incorporating words from the spiritual leader Ram Dass. In 2024, he released the album Ritual.
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