![]() “It's the part of the album-writing process that I like the least. Essentially, this part is about exploration.īut as any writer knows, getting started is sometimes the hardest part. These days, they don't often make it to the finished record but they're ready to play straight away,” he told Resident Advisor.īut for Hopkins, now 40, these early experiments are only there to capture some kind of “spark or spirit”. “I've had it since the late '90s and I've got hundreds of my sounds in there. Today, Hopkins still uses an old synth to sketch out his ideas: the Korg Trinity. His favourite was Acperience 1 and its unmistakably squelchy sound. He became obsessed with acid house by listening to late-night pirate radio. That sort of electronic thing was completely new to me,” he told Soundcheck.īut it was Roland’s TB-303 that would truly set his musical course. Intoxicated by the synthesisers of Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode records, he spent the money made from piano recitals on a Roland D-20. Hopkins was getting his inspiration from the 20th century instead. A fugue is a 400-year-old form! That course might as well have been unchanged since the 17th century,” he told The Skinny. “I looked at what was on the course for music and it was learning how to write a fugue. And not even an offer from Cambridge could persuade him. He couldn’t be confined to tradition and technique. But eventually, you need to learn – the proper finger technique, strengthening the fingers, which you need to realise more complex improvisational ideas,” he told Fact.īut when compulsory education ended, so did his classical aspirations. “I just wanted to play – I didn’t want to be taught scales. At eight, Hopkins had started piano lessons and, three years later, was so proficient that he’d earned himself a place at London’s Royal College of Music. This moment started a fire in Hopkins it ignited a lifelong passion. And, although it was only one octave, he put the bars in order to create a tune. At three-years-old, he got a toy xylophone for Christmas. Hopkins has been making sense of everyday sounds since he can remember. And the music ended in such a magical chord sequence that this one incredibly trivial thing actually triggered a lot of what I've tried to do since,” Hopkins told The Skinny. “.my mind slipped into this bizarre hypnotic state caused by the windscreen wipers, which were going slightly out of time with the music, but sort of in time too. The producer, 21 at the time, sat passenger side listening to demos by Frou Frou: an electronic duo composed of Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth. This might sound like an insignificant moment for many - it wasn't for Jon Hopkins. A car travelled along a rain-soaked road, thunder rumbling ominously in the distance. 19 years ago, it was a wet and dreary day in England - another one. ![]()
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