Jon Hopkins Announces New Album Ritual, Shares Video for New Song: Watch

Jon Hopkins will release a new album, Ritual, on August 30, via Domino. The record is a 41-minute “ceremonial epic,” according to a press release, and an excerpt of it soundtracks the video for “Ritual (Evocation).” Hopkins worked on the video with director Dave Bullivant and its star, the aerial rope performer Bryony Louise Fowler. Check it out below, along with the artwork and tracklist.

In a press release, Hopkins said:

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 analyze 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.

Ultimately though, all I have to say about it is said by the sound.

Contributors to the album include Vylana, 7Rays, Ishq, Clark, Emma Smith, Daisy Vatalaro, and Cherif Hashizume. Ritual follows Music for Psychedelic Therapy, the 2021 album Hopkins made to accompany guided psychedelic trips.

Ritual:

01 Jon Hopkins / Ishq: “Part I – Altar”
02 Jon Hopkins / Vylana: “Part II – Palace / Illusion”
03 Jon Hopkins / Vylana: “Part III – Transcend / Lament”
04 Jon Hopkins / 7Rays / Ishq: “Part IV – The Veil”
05 Jon Hopkins / Cherif Hashizume / Ishq: “Part V – Evocation”
06 Jon Hopkins / Vylana / 7Rays: “Part VI – Solar Goddess Return” [ft. Ishq and Cherif Hashizume]
07 Jon Hopkins: “Part VII – Dissolution”
08 Jon Hopkins: “Part VIII – Nothing Is Lost”

01 Jon Hopkins / Vylana / 7Rays: “Ritual (Evocation)” [ft. Ishq and Cherif Hashizume]