Letras de canciones de Jon Hopkins

There was a moment in the mid-2000s when Jon Hopkins largely swore off solo work—not a bad thing, in retrospect, if only because the full sweep of his career would be unthinkable without the skills he learned and the connections he made as a session player and producer. It was that time in the trenches that forged Hopkins’ strikingly original perspective—a fusion of techno with neoclassical and ambient acoustic songwriting that runs from late-night reflection to dance-floor abandon.

Disillusioned with his own work, Hopkins (born in Surrey, England, in 1979) spent much of the 2000s producing other acts and recording with Brian Eno, who brought him on board to help make Coldplay’s 2008 LP Viva la Vida—in fact, that’s his shimmering synth work that opens the album. From there, things progressed quickly. In 2010, he explored the depths of his sound on the soundtrack to the British horror film Monsters, and alongside Eno and his friend Leo Abrahams, he turned in the haunting, atmospheric Small Craft on a Milk Sea; 2011 brought another shift in the form of Diamond Mine, an intimate, often heartbreaking album of piano- and guitar-driven ballads with the Scottish singer King Creosote which garnered Hopkins his first Mercury Prize nomination. The pendulum swung yet again on 2013’s Immunity—another Mercury nominee—and its 2018 follow-up, Singularity: Here, he digs into throbbing synths, intricately syncopated drum grooves, and foundation-shaking bass to present his vision of techno. It’s a sound as mercurial as a weather system, and as vast and dynamic as a mountain landscape. What it shares with his quietest work is its dynamism and eagle-eyed attention to detail.