Customer Reviews

Insides

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just relatively recently came into Jon Hopkins and was pleasantly surprised by the musicality of his work. I love ambient music...apparently....but Hopkins music actually IS music. Even though I can tell it is created on a computer(mostly) it is still very, very organic.....which is kind of nice, I think, eh? This album is actually not as much of a favorite as are his previous, but if Light Through the Veins doesn't get you then you aren't going to like his other stuff.....

Oh, and , of course, if you like Coldplay...that song will sound familiar, he worked with them on their latest album viva La Vida......

Cheers!

I have been listening to Jon Hopkins for a while now, and started off with his "Contact Note", "Opalescent", and "EP-1" releases, which I really like. I am an ambient music enthusiast, and listen to other artists such as Album Leaf, American Dollar, Near the Parenthesis, etc.

I must admit that this particular album left me unsettled, and I did not like it at first. I thought that it was a clear departure from his early work, and could not recognize the rythms and melodies that had attracted me to his work in the first place. Obviously, based on my rating, I now feel very differently about this album.

I still feel that it is in many ways largely different from Hopkins's other albums, but it is great music nonetheless. I truly hate having music in my iPod that I listened to once and never touch again. So, I gave "Insides" another shot, and was very pleasantly surprises. I'm not sure if I was in a particularly crappy mood when I originally heard the album, or whatever reason made me decide I didn't like it. But I have since listened to it a dozen times, and it is truly brilliant work. The mixture of electronic beats, sounds, and harmonious melodies is a pleasure to listen to.

This album fits in a different category in my opinion. I still love his earlier works, but this one stands apart. This is chaos meets harmony work, and it absolutely work.

I definitely recommend this album. If you are a Jon Hopkins enthusiast, and have his earlier releases, take some time to really listen. Get some good headphones, and let this music take you away. Like many great art works, this one takes a little patience to truly enjoy, but when you finally do enjoy it, you will not regret it! Enjoy!

If you like electronic music this is a must have. The album flows beautifully. All the electronic "sound effects" fit perfectly.

Now I've got a lot of favorite songs, and a lot of favorite albums, but I've never heard an album like this before. Every single song flows together so perfectly that it's almost as if you're listening to a story without any words. This album is so beautiful and every track is so magical that I'm amazed I can even think of words to describe it. I've listened to a lot of music in my life and I don't think I'll ever find anything as beautiful as this album for the rest of my life.

I first heard Jon Hopkins on Coldplay's Viva la Vida album. I simply thought the intro was pleasant, but I never gave it a second thought. Then I saw him open for Coldplay. To describe Jon's live show as "trippy" would be an understatement. Here's a man, standing in the middle of a giant stadium, with a 25 foot tall screen next to him, showing a well-synchronized film that looked as though M.C. Escher and Salvador Dali had a love child who decided to animate cartoons for a living. It was simultaneously overwhelming, but extremely organized at the same time. I spent a good part of the time trying to track down who it was standing behind the controls, only to find out it was the same guy who wrote Light Through the Veins. I went out and immediately purchased Opalescent, only to find that the same level of, as Jon puts it "evil" that he had done in concert, were conspicuously missing. Enter "Insides". Insides provides some of this harsher sound, placed nicely alongside pure ambient. Think of it as a more accessible Aphex Twin, with a more daring soul, to place his fastest and most abrasive sounding tracks right next to his most ambient works.


This is not an album that should be taken as a whole. It's most certainly an entire work, and you'll want to try to find some uninterrupted time to hear the whole thing straight through. If you're used to Opalescent, or you're looking for something like Loscil or Max Richter, you'll find that here, but you'll also find some harsher sounds. This isn't an ambient album for sleepers. There are some harsh tones here. Hopkins is trying to evoke emotions from the listener, and he accomplishes his task very well. You will find yourself at different times here, fidgety, calm, and reflective, but Hopkins does an excellent job in track order here, in order to create a cohesive whole. If I had to describe this album, I would put it in the "ambient music that won't put me to sleep" category. Very few albums grab my attention for more than about two listens, but this one is one of the most unique and long-lasting albums I've ever heard. What follows is a more detailed description of the album.

"The Wider Sun" greets you with a well-layered, gorgeous array of live violin, raw and surprisingly well-recorded. I wouldn't be surprised if Hopkins had something synthesized with the same general tune, but felt it would be better represented using live instruments. It has the feel of an ambient electronic track, but it's fleshed out in a way that doesn't cheat you out of any live sound at all. Close your eyes, and you'll imagine yourself in a room surrounded by violinists. It's as though they're there to say goodbye as you're about to take a journey into the forest, and it isn't going to be all calm.

The next track, "Vessel", is ambient, but there's a discomfort that begins to be present in the some of the rhythms and in some sawtooth sine-wave pulses that hit you, but stay mostly in the background. At this point, you're tapping your feet. Then, in the last minute of the song, things start to feel a little uncomfortable. The pulses start to take over, and you're finding yourself without any semblance of calm. It's evocative, but controlled, and by design.

The title track which continues this theme is the harshest song on the album. It makes me think of clocks, without thinking about time. The second half harasses you with overwhelming electro-pulses that move about in all directions. This is not sleeping music at this point. It's dark, harsh, and, well, plain evil.

While the slowly building "Wire" is not the most ambient song on the album, it's put in a good place just behind "Insides". It's no less rhythmic, but it's more "friendly" and balanced than the last couple of tracks. This sounds like something Massive Attack might place towards the end of one of their more recent works. It's straightforward, consistent, and extremely enjoyable. This is the music you'll want to hear while sitting at your desk being productive.

"Colour Eye" is probably the best juxtaposition of fast-paced rhythms placed perfectly alongside an extremely ambient piano part. The piano and wind sounds provide a base for the sometimes harsh rhythms that rear their heads in this track. It closes with the calming sound of rain, and that's the last you hear in this album of harshness. The rest is an extremely calm denouement.

"Light Through the Veins" is immediately recognizable to any Coldplay listener. While it's a good track, I would say it's far from the best track on the album, oddly enough, even though it's the one he's most known for. It's a slow, deconstructive build on the same tune. As the 9 minute track finishes, the tune you heard at the beginning is completely gone, replaced by the closest thing you're going to hear on this album to new age music.

"The Low Places" is a minimalist track with piano and gear-like sounds. It plods along, maintaining the same general feel throughout. This feels like the most "real world" track, given the mechanistic winding sounds that are present here. It's really a very beautiful track.

"Small Memory", the shortest track on the album, is a solo piano piece with a very lyrical melody that sometimes makes you wonder why Hopkins didn't choose to elaborate on this theme. It's very reminiscent of Max Richter.

"A Drifting Up" reintroduces some of the percussive sounds present in the first half of the album, but it's much more controlled and subdued than it was in the beginning. You'll hear some soft speech in the background that you can't quite make out, and a soft, orchestral synth that is present throughout. Any one of these elements taken by themselves wouldn't be impressive in and of themselves, but Hopkins creates just the right mix here to keep it interesting.

"Autumn Hill" completes the album, and is the most ambient of all the works here. It sounds like a piano sonata being played in a field. The close of the song is truly reminiscent of the track's title, leading you to the feeling that you're outside in late October or early November, laying on the grass with someone you love looking up at the sky. You hear the pianist close the piano, stand up, and walk away. It's a perfect finish.

I would strongly recommend purchasing this album. It is, in my opinion, an excellent follow-up to his earlier work, and shows a great deal of musicianship. One warning, however, I would most certainly ensure you have a good pair of headphones (canal-phones or over the ear) to listen to this album. It's imperative you hear this music the way it's intended to be heard. There are far too many details for laptop speakers or car stereo. This is wholeheartedly an earphone album.

I heard about Jon Hopkins through youtube when i was searching for "Life in technicolor", Life in technicolor ii, and "the escapist" video tracks by Coldplay, I found out that the melody from those great songs was actually based on a Jon Hopkins song called "Light though the veins." I later found out that Jon Hopkins worked with Coldplay on "Viva la vida" album or at least those 3 songs. Both albums Viva la vida, and Insides by Jon Hopkins metions one another in the album art book. Jon's 9 minute "Light through the veins" is an amazing song i have to repeat it over and over again, not to metion that i cant help but sing or hum the lyrics to Coldplay's "life in technicolor's" and "the escapist." Sadly though the rest of the tracks on this album are no where near as good as "Light through the veins" is. Some of the other tracks sound like club techno music which i do not like, but others are beautiful as well. I'd say that half of the tracks are worth buying, but for me "Light through the veins" was the reason i bought this album.