Listen: Jon Hopkins - 'RITUAL (evocation)'

Image credit: Still from 'RITUAL (evocation)' music video

Just when you think he’s gone as deep as is possible, Jon Hopkins has done it again. With his last album of meditative, beatless compositions Music For Psychedelic Therapy out in late 2021, today Hopkins has announced his seventh studio album, RITUAL, alongside the album’s title track and video for RITUAL (evocation).

A slow burning and downright epic affair, RITUAL (evocation) opens with a simple, single, repeated synth blip alongside sweeping strings and yes - drums are back on the menu for Hopkins, with some huge orchestral-style percussion entering the mix. The star of the show - an ever moving, snarling lead synth line soon joins in the fun, before a myriad of sounds and processing are slowly introduced, leading to a palpable build up of tension that doesn’t let up until the track’s very end - all glorious six minutes of it.

Meanwhile, the simply stunning music video was directed by Dave Bullivant in collaboration with Hopkins and stars aerial rope performer Bryony Louise Fowler busting out some gravity-defying choreography, with her hypnotic movements matching the emotion and intensity of the piece.

Talking about RITUAL, Hopkins explains “I have no idea what I'm doing when I'm composing. I don’t know where it’s coming from, and I don't know where it's going, nor does it seem to matter. I just know when it is finished.So all I can really do is feel my way to the end, then try and retrospectively analyse what might be going on, and try and figure out what its purpose is. What is clear is that this one has the structure of a Ritual. I know what that Ritual is for me, but it will be something different for you. It feels important not to be prescriptive about what this Ritual actually is.

It feels like a tool, maybe even a machine, for opening portals within your inner world, for unlocking things that are hidden and buried. Things that are held in place by the tension in your body. It doesn’t feel like “an album” therefore - more a process to go through, something that works on you. At the same time, it feels like it tells a story. Maybe it's the story of a process I’m going through, and one that we are all going through. Maybe it’s also the story of creation, destruction and transcendence. Maybe it’s the story of the archetypal hero’s journey - the journey of forgetting and remembering.”

Take a deep breath and dive into RITUAL (evocation):

Jon Hopkins' new album RITUAL is out August 30 via Domino Record Co

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