Jon Hopkins announces forthcoming album, RITUAL

RITUAL is a culmination of themes explored throughout Jon Hopkins' 22-year career, and acts as the kinetic counterpart to 2021’s Music For Psychedelic Therapy.

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," he continues. "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.”

Featuring long-term collaborators Vylana, 7RAYS, Ishq, Clark, Emma Smith, Daisy Vatalaro and Cherif Hashizume, RITUAL came together within the second half of 2023, but initial seeds were sown in 2022, when Hopkins was commissioned to compose for the Dreamachine* immersive experience in London created by Collective Act, in collaboration with a team of artists, scientists and philosophers.

RITUAL will be premiered in spatial audio at London’s ICA on Sunday 12 May giving fans an early opportunity to engage with this special album, and a further listening event will take place at Glastonbury Festival on their Ambient stage.

Tracklist:

1. part i – altar
2. part ii – palace / illusion
3. part iii – transcend / lament
4. part iv – the veil
5. part v – evocation
6. part vi – solar goddess return
7. part vii – dissolution
8. part viii – nothing is lost