Top 98 Quotes & Sayings by Jon Hopkins - Page 2

Ironically, my tastes aren't that experimental, and I wouldn't describe my music on the surface as being overtly experimental, either.

Music has always been so integral to my life. It's always been my work and my passion.

Ever since I got a job in Imogen Heap's touring band when I was 17, there have been moments in my career that I can't quite believe really happened.

Well, I like the idea of seeing every piece of music as fluid. I see the tracks as places almost, structures you can inhabit and explore.

I love truly forward-thinking music, and I'm not even sure I'd describe my work as that, even.

I was drawn to music from a super early age. At school, my ego co-opted it to some degree and I would use it to gain some sort of social credibility.

It sounds a bit pretentious, but I'm never really conscious of what I'm doing musically.

I love exploring the hypnotic elements of music, and because of that there are very long tracks on 'Immunity.'

If I've made something really serene... well, if everything is like that, it's like having too much icing on your cake. You need something else under it, some kind of grounding. It's like if you're making a film, you can't have only happy moments, or else they become meaningless.

My own personality is fairly optimistic and generally very happy, but like everyone else I've been through difficult stuff, particularly in my teenage years, where I experienced enough melancholia to feed any number of electronic records.

My first ever show in America was opening for Coldplay at Madison Square Garden. Nobody in that audience could have known who I was. It was almost like it was an accident, like I was in someone else's dream.

I have an obsession with making an album rather than a collection of tracks. For me it's like making a film - it's the perfect length of time to tell a story.

Singularity' goes through a process of purification and signification. If you listen to it, you can hear quite a chaotic and disruptive beginning and by the end, you're in such an opposite zone.

As soon as I finish meditating, I get a beautiful feeling of expanded consciousness. When I'm in this headspace I can make so much progress in my writing.

Making music has always had a therapeutic effect on me.

You can't allow your creative sessions to be dominated by miniscule editing processes.

I don't have a huge amount of gear, but on the software side, I have a number of plug-in chains that act as abstracted versions of real instruments.

I think there's a spiritual element to dancing in general. There's a reason why in every culture, dancing seems to be in our DNA.

It's extraordinary to hear from people who are bereaved, or gone through a divorce, and they still take the time to tell me how a certain track or album helped them through tough times, or kept them sane.

Overall, 'Singularity' has a certain lightness to it compared to 'Immunity.' It's less closed off; it doesn't have that claustrophobic sound.

I did classical music when I was a teenager, but the experience of performing a classical concert felt too frighteningly pristine for me to continue with it.

I always make sure there's something for the audience to connect to, in terms of my movements relating to the sounds being heard.

I learned over the years to trust that the subconscious is going to provide guidance.

A night out isn't just chaos and hedonism. It can be beautiful as well and there's a sadness to the end of it.

I've always been obsessed with contrast in records, and using harsher elements to make the quieter ones more powerful.

You don't make this kind of music expecting to have to do TV press and stuff like that. I don't mind doing it, but it's a fairly underground type of music. You do it for the love of the music more than being a star or anything.

I love that tension between machine sounds and organic sounds, and also the contrast between abrasive sounds and soft sounds.

It is funny how we talk about nature as this separate entity when we are nature, and nature is us.

I have always been interested in incorporating real places into the music I make. Bringing the outside into the controlled world of recorded sound just gives life and physicality.

I've always lived in my head, which is very easy to do when you live and work in a city.

I really don't use that much stuff. I think it's good to know a few pieces of equipment very well, rather than learn new ones every time. I think it distracts from the writing process.

I just love switching stuff off and going for a run, or sitting down and eating cake.

What kind of music keeps its relevance? That's why I purposely try and avoid any particularly current trends in electronic music. I do actively stay away from the most popular rhythms of the moment. In six weeks' time, those will sound out-of-date.

Sometimes I think elements of 'Open Eye Signal' are better live. I do this really crazy stuff at the end, but I don't know if it'd translate well into recording. It would probably sound a bit too extreme.

I'm actually a big fan of turning off my phone and ignoring it for large chunks of the day.

The process of repeating a rhythm while it gently evolves has an incredible effect on the brain, or on mine anyway.

When I was 23, I felt like I was further back than when I was 21. After two solo albums for this small indie label Just Music, they'd gotten no real profile. So I kind of turned away from the solo thing a bit.

I'm not interested in making an album that's just dark and pummelling for an hour, nor am I interested in making a beatless record from start to finish.