If you're in search of some soothing sounds to fill your isolation hours, Jon Hopkins has you covered. The producer has returned today with lengthy new track, on top of a playlist full of "Quiet" offerings.
Following recent single "Scene Suspended," Hopkins has now shared the 20-minute "Singing Bowl (Ascension)," which you can hear a four-minute excerpt of below.
Hopkins created the track by first recording the tones of a 100-year-old singing bowl purchased at an antique shop in Delhi. From there, he "fed these into a laptop running a simple, generative system that triggered the hits and drones at random. This would allow synchronicity to play a central part in the composition process, and remove as much 'thinking' as possible from the writing."
Of the process, Hopkins said in a statement, "It felt beautifully pure to just use one acoustic sound source, and no synths. It was liberating to write something without playing anything on a keyboard — to avoid the familiar diatonic scale for the first time, and thus avoid any of my own conditioned playing habits. There was a magic in setting this generative system in motion then just letting the vibrations of this bowl create their own world. I listened to harmonics layering on top of harmonics for hours and was transported."
"Singing Bowl (Ascension)" also leads off a new Hopkins-curated Spotify playlist of "Quiet" tunes, which you'll also find below.
"I started building this playlist a few years ago just for myself and friends, as a way of collecting and sharing ambient music I loved," the producer said of the over 24-hour mix. "I've been using it for meditations and psychedelic journeys for ages. With everything that is happening right now this felt like the right time to make it public."
Hopkins's most recent album is 2018's Singularity. He also shared a new song with Kelly Lee Owens last December.
Following recent single "Scene Suspended," Hopkins has now shared the 20-minute "Singing Bowl (Ascension)," which you can hear a four-minute excerpt of below.
Hopkins created the track by first recording the tones of a 100-year-old singing bowl purchased at an antique shop in Delhi. From there, he "fed these into a laptop running a simple, generative system that triggered the hits and drones at random. This would allow synchronicity to play a central part in the composition process, and remove as much 'thinking' as possible from the writing."
Of the process, Hopkins said in a statement, "It felt beautifully pure to just use one acoustic sound source, and no synths. It was liberating to write something without playing anything on a keyboard — to avoid the familiar diatonic scale for the first time, and thus avoid any of my own conditioned playing habits. There was a magic in setting this generative system in motion then just letting the vibrations of this bowl create their own world. I listened to harmonics layering on top of harmonics for hours and was transported."
"Singing Bowl (Ascension)" also leads off a new Hopkins-curated Spotify playlist of "Quiet" tunes, which you'll also find below.
"I started building this playlist a few years ago just for myself and friends, as a way of collecting and sharing ambient music I loved," the producer said of the over 24-hour mix. "I've been using it for meditations and psychedelic journeys for ages. With everything that is happening right now this felt like the right time to make it public."
Hopkins's most recent album is 2018's Singularity. He also shared a new song with Kelly Lee Owens last December.
